It still doesn’t make sense, but it sure as hell never stops being funny. I love how much the cast of Work Out loves themselves. Jackie’s narcissism, Rebecca’s narcissism, Jesse’s narcissism and Brian Peeler’s über narcissism are kind of confusing in how they’ve survived two seasons of seeing how atrocious they can appear on camera, but you’ve got to admire them for soldiering on. Especially those trainers, who, for all of their complaining, really have no problem orbiting around Jackie Warner like the radiant lesbian sun she is.

They do love her. They also love to hate her. As long as they’re talking about her, their emotions are pretty much an afterthought. Rarely do you see a crowd of people so deeply consumed by one person. Obviously, this has a lot to do with the fact that their minor fame hinges on their relationship with the owner of their gym and the star of this show. But Jackie’s thrall reaches more than just her employees though. A startling number of articles came out about the many folks who cannot get enough of her just before the premiere of the third season.

… A season that has one big problem. New people! New people with no reverence for Jackie or a desire to talk about her! I cannot abide these folks and I request their removal immediately. Other than Jackie’s sweet new assistant, all three additions to the Sky Sport staff seem unnecessary and lack any semblance of a personality – catty or otherwise.

They are fun to look at though. And, after all, the real success of Work Out is that it’s one of the only shows on television that does not facilitate laziness. It’s impossible to watch these hot bodies and not be at least a little motivated. And if they can spare just a handful of viewers the pain of being unfit and the absurd cost of a Sky Sport membership, isn’t it all worth it?

Let me first say that the caliber of talent on a show like this is unfathomable to someone like myself. In the alternate universe where sewing a dress would be mildly appealing to me, I still don’t think I’d be remotely deft at it. These people are, but for the last couple of weeks their creations have not reflected that. The challenges haven’t suffered like I expected they would, yet the outcome is not what it used to be. I think a lack of structure is at fault. The best clothes this season have been produced during the most specific challenges. Giving these people a task and then letting them run amok in a fabric store doesn’t produce the same results as handing them a couple pairs of old jeans and pointing at a model. They need specifics, and last night reflected that perfectly. Everyone whose designs suffered did so because of poor interpretation and color choices. I realize that the whole idea of Project Runway is to find the person who can produce the most amazing designs under any set of circumstances, but is it really worth arriving at that conclusion if the months prior are spent suffering through people who can’t?

On the personality side of Runway, I am reasonably happy to see who is left this late in the game. Chris’s endurance and success this long after being kicked off and kicked back on almost demand that he stick around until Bryant Park. Sweet P is more fun to have around than she is talented, while Jillian’s creativity is dampened by how ungodly boring she is. I can tolerate Cristian’s forced persona but only for his consistently interesting offerings. And Rami, despite his recent outburst at Sweet P and fun-spiral, is still my favorite. I’m waiting for him to crank it back up.

To return one last time to irksome Ricky before I purge him from my mind until the inevitable reunion, I would like to point out that the only episode in his extended run on the show when he didn’t sob hysterically was the night that he was told to leave the show. Irony is rarely this frustrating.

Now I’m not rooting against Project Runway. In fact, I came on board long after most. Skinny Andy Warhol-ish guy completely frightened me off from watching the first season, and it took a well-edited Santino clip reel that showed up mid-second season to prompt me to give the show another chance. I’ve really only had one good year of watching it – a lot less than most. So while Project Runway should still feel fresh, all of Bravo’s copies (most of them sloppily executed) are kind of souring me to the original.

Bravo has developed a bad habit of putting all of their eggs in one basket. They think, oh, people love this basket! So they make the basket last an extra month and interrupt its development with poorly placed, self-congratulatory reunion specials and delay resolution for so long that viewers are running on sheer frustration and not actual suspense. There’s also the matter of casting. Where it used to be the biggest draw of these shows, the last few groups of Bravo competitors have been much flatter than we’re used to. (I had to fight to like most of the folks from the last season of Top Chef. Hung as a villain? Please!)

It’s not like I’m not going to watch every episode this season. I’ve already picked my favorites based on their headshots (Simone & Kevin), and competition aside, I’d tune in just for Heidi Klum’s pretty smile and Tim Gunn’s fatherly comfort. I just kind of wonder how much of this season will be must-see TV and how much will just feel obligatory.

Once the season was in full swing, and we had chosen our favorites, Top Chef quickly became a slow-motion car wreck. We could see the oncoming Hung victory, but there was nothing we could do to stop it. There was a glimmer of hope from Casey in the last couple of weeks, but she buckled under the pressures of reality TV and completely blew it. Even sweet, gay Dale became more of a contender than expected (Lamb poached in Duck fat? Yes, please!), but there was just no stopping the technical mastery and obnoxiousness of Hung.

In their first ever live finale, they screened the elimination challenge before an audience in the arbitrarily chosen city of Chicago, before the three finalists faced the awkward panel. Only Padma (who looked like she was trying to hide a baby belly under that dress) wasn’t alarmed by the cameras. Like an autistic child with a burning desire to pee, Hung spent the live portion bouncing around and making animal noises. No one has ever expected anything more. In his latest showing of robotic emotion, Hung thanked America for supporting him. He must have been referring to the non-texting portion of the country though, because he only 12% of the live poll wanted him to win.

There won’t be an excuse for a recap from the weird YouTube ladies for quite a while, so without further adieu, here is some additional commentary with a green screen and tiaras:

Jeff on forcing employees to pick up human feces: “I realize that was never in the job description, but, you know, your description expands. You’ve got new responsibilities all the time.”

Wow. No reality personality gave us more profound sound bites and YouTube fodder this summer than Flipping Out‘s Jeff Lewis. A Los Angeles speculator (house flipper) who handles all of his business with the meticulousness and focus of a serial killer, Jeff is like Dexter but with high end real estate. When he’s not railing his employees over creepy specifics like the way they pick up the phone and the lemonade to punch ratio in his afternoon refreshments, he’s hiring psychics to cleanse his many homes of bad vibes and to communicate with his pets. If you’ve been watching at all, you’ve probably found yourself asking the same questions that I have. Is this guy real or is this all for show? And either way, where the hell does Bravo find these people?

In last night’s season finale, Jeff threw a mandatory “we appreciate you” party for his staff after closing the deal on another fancy home. He chose this time to apologize for his behavior, shed a little tear over all they’ve accomplished together and more or less fire one of his assistants. As his maid cries over how much she loves him, you can’t help but wonder if this is a watershed moment for Jeff. Since the show aired, he has even come forward to say it was a reality check for him (Ba-dum-chh!). I remain unconvinced. Jeff has been at this for a long time, and a semi-annual apology and immediate return to the norm seems right up his alley. He scrapes by giving in just enough to not be left totally on his own. In turn, it’s exactly what I need to keep watching.

No word on a renewal yet, but you won’t hear any complaints from me if Bravo brings Flipping Out back for another season. Jeff might not be as high as Jackie Warner on the crazy/awesome scale, but he’s miles above Jonathan Antin.

If there’s anything I like and know better than television, it’s burgers, so the fusion of the two on last night’s Top Chef Quickfire Challenge was a reason to smile indeed. Too bad the contestants were given the menu at Red Robin as a model for what they were expected to make. The White Castle slider pictured above is evidence that my tastes aren’t strictly highbrow, but that sort of corporate sponsorship is just embarrassing.

Of the eight remaining contestants, only two of them chose to actually use beef. The horror of watching Chef Daniel Boulud espouse Red Robin through clenched teeth was only overshadowed by our “pros” trying to pass off lettuce wraps and paninis for man’s simplest and most delicious creation. CJ won with his “scallop mousse and shrimp burger” though Howie’s truffle burger definitely appeared to be the tastiest. He may be annoying and combative, but at least he knows what a hamburger looks like. As of this week, contestants no longer win immunity during the Quickfire, so CJ’s consolation was picking his team for (drumroll) this season’s Restaurant Wars!

These challenges are simultaneously exciting and disappointing. The two teams are given a day to decorate a restaurant, design a menu and provide a full dinner service to 30 discerning costumers and a group of particularly picky judges. The result is almost always a craptastic train wreck, and this year proved no exception. Keeping with the grand tradition established by seasons one and two, the Miami folks started out by giving their restaurants horrible names – though none of them come close to last season’s comical mishmash of contestant girlfriend initials, “Lalalina.”

The horrible service, poorly planned menus and asinine scented candles all seemed to bode one of the most dramatic eliminations yet, but it never came (probably because both teams were kind enough to at least remember the booze). After all of the infighting and blame-placing, these kids get to try it again next week. Head Judge Tom Colicchio wanted them to think of the challenge as a “soft opening,” and with no one being sent home for all of the buffoonery, the opening clearly wasn’t the only thing soft about last night.

For good measure, have any of you caught these two ladies and their Top Chef recaps on YouTube? I’m pretty sure the one on the right is 12, but she talks about boozing it up at the Red Robin so I may be wrong. Regardless, I’m obsessed…

It’s been a hard week to talk about TV – mostly because there’s nothing on. Notable preempts for more patriotic fare were Top Chef and So You Think You Can Dance (our favorites!). What there hasn’t been a lack of this week is discussion of Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi’s recent split from literato/cradle robber Salman Rushdie. These two might have been a South Asian super couple on paper, but Salman’s penchant for divorce and Padma’s lust for the gange just couldn’t keep them together. Though Padma is no doubt pleased to be on the market again, why not show your support for Team Lakshmi by snagging one of Neighborhoodies’ new Top Chef Tees?

Personally, I will be rocking the Tom Colicchio, because if there’s anything I love more than that man’s sandwiches, it’s his self-satisfied smirk. Padma doesn’t need any additional support from me anyway. The unfinished copy of Midnight’s Children laying in my desk drawer says it all.

Her new show, Hey Paula, is not as entertaining as you might imagine, given her penchant for public meltdowns. It follows in the footsteps of celebrity documentary-style shows of past, with one glaring exception: Paula is really busy. The funniest reality shows have always chronicled those with excessive downtime, and Paula’s schedule only allows her to really ham it up for the camera during car rides to and from the airport or while she’s getting her hair done. She shows how truly detached she is from contemporary culture by making jokes about the Clintons’ sex lives and Joan Rivers’ plastic surgery. Its been a long time since Paula knew what was really going on.

Conventional format aside, the real copout of Hey Paula is the show’s poor attempt to pass off her drunken/drugged incoherence as the effects of “insomnia.” Her patient manager, a less deviant version of Anna Nicole’s Howard K. Stern, just sighs when Paula makes a fool of herself and says what a horrible time it is for her lack of sleep to catch up with her. I’m inclined to at least pretend to accept this excuse. If posting clips of Neil Patrick Harris’s imitations on YouTube has taught me anything, it’s that Paula fans (while largely illiterate) are one of the most fervent and spiteful groups out there today. And I don’t want to cross them.

I’ve been looking forward to last night’s match-up between the first two seasons of Top Chef for some weeks now, and not just because Sam Talbot (pictured above, with french fries) might be the most charming (and cheated!) contestant in the history of competitive reality programming. I wanted to see how the first seasons’ contestants would perform in a new environment. It’s been hard to tell if they were horrible because the show hadn’t yet hit its stride or if they were just annoying and boring. Turns out it really was the latter. Such a shame they’re better chefs.

They cooked their butts off, they won and, with the exception of Stephen, they had absolutely nothing to say. Ilan and Marcel, with their large personalities and absurd hair, were rarely out of the spotlight. And while being a douche is clearly just Ilan’s nature, I’m more convinced than ever that Marcel is just pandering to his audience. In the span of just one hour we got excessive gloating, a couple of fights and (yes!) another food rap. His saffron-infused egg foam was also the best dish of the night – if only for being the greatest show of passive aggression ever.

The new cast was on hand to judge the food, and, as you might imagine, they all thought that they could do better. This confidence will be short-lived though – they’re all about to be exposed on basic cable for the untalented, unattractive losers that most of them are. As far as excitement goes, the only real surprise of the night was at the judges table. Looking at sweet, stoned Padma Lakshmi – how is it possible that this was the first time I noticed the gigantic seven-inch scar on right arm? I thought maybe she’d pushed Salman over the edge since the last season, but it turns out she’s had it for 15 years. She’s got a pretty good attitude about the whole thing and, um, an interesting way of writing about it.

The next season of Top Chef starts next week, and if last night’s cameo by the competitors was any indication of how much I’ll like it, season two is looking more and more like an exception to a really crappy rule.

I’ll be the first to admit that the beat-boxing bit is getting a little stale and that his actual talents might be shadowed by his competition, but Blake is neither boring nor insincere, which cannot be said for Melinda or Jordin. He just loves music and his strange, strange way of making it. I’d like to think that he could stick through to the finale, but the pragmatist in me knows otherwise. Every Idol moment we have with Blake from here on out is a gift from above, because his only chance to win this competition is if people are able to phone in and vote from 1998 – the year he so rightly belongs in.

While the end of Idol should mean a respite from obsessive reality watching, such is not the case. The end of the month signals the return of two favorites (So You Think You Can Dance and Top Chef) and the premiere of Pirate Master. Better still, Bravo has started running teaser promos for what might likely be the most significant development in exploitation since The Swan – Hey Paula!

The show will chronicle the behind-the-scenes antics of the American Idol judge and looks like it will finally confirm everyone’s strong suspicions that she is, indeed, crazy as a shithouse rat. Yes, Bravo (creators of Being Bobby Brown) could go the high road and not take advantage of Paula’s more humbling moments. But if this clip is any indication, we’re about to get a long overdue explanation for Paula’s absurd behavior. Here’s to an extra two months of finding the beauty in everything, slurred speech and clapping like your nails are wet!

The idea of a competition show based on hair styling is almost too stupid to bear, but Bravo really can’t help itself. The M. Night Shyamalan of reality programming, Bravo took a successful and lauded phenomenon and copied the formula over and over until it was almost unrecognizable. Shear Genius may be a fourth-generation hunchbacked clone with webbed toes, but unlike its immediate predecessor, it’s actually kind of fun to watch.

The supreme failure of Top Design wasn’t the lame premise – that was a given. Almost all shows like these are fundamentally stupid, but salvation is always possible through proper casting. And casting is one thing that Shear Genius has done incredibly well. They’ve created a perfect ratio of annoying whiners, indignant prima donnas and flamboyant stereotypes. There’s even a girl who loves cutting hair so much, just talking about it brings her to tears. Jaclyn Smith’s gravelly voice doesn’t provide the comfort of Heidi Klum’s ever-dissolving German accent, but she’s heads above poor Todd Oldham. Sally Hershberger may look like a poor man’s Chrissie Hynde, but I admire people who refuse to let go of decades past, and her bitchiness could prove entertaining later on.

Almost all of its failures are unavoidable and ultimately forgivable. Though it would be nice if Bravo took their gigantic programming gaps as an opportunity to be innovative, it’s understandable that they’d try to cater to their core viewers while we all wait with bated breath for the next Tim Gunntastic season of Project Runway. It’s not as captivating as Work Out (my guiltiest pleasure), but Shear Genius does a bang-up job of not being boring. And given the low expectations, isn’t that all we can really ask for?

But Sam ended up being more of a liability than an asset to poor Marcel. In lieu of focusing his contempt on Ilan, who completely stole his spot in the finale, Sam may very well have taken Marcel out of the running with trash-talking at the elimination table and stolen credit for Marcel’s most well-received dish. I’ve never had sea beans before, and I never care to if they’re soaked in the bitter brine of betrayal.
When it looked as if it wouldn’t get any worse, the promise of “never before seen” chef-on-chef snark during the commercials of Bravo’s premiere episode of Top Design was enough to entice me.

If opening credits were ever indicative of a program’s overall quality and tone, they are on Top Design. In what I hope is some producer-sanctioned ditty and not a song that exists in full somewhere, bizarre nineties techno music introduces us to the contestants while a robotic woman pants and moans a series of ahs and heys. By the time the show actually starts, I am on the floor laughing with no chance of getting back up before the end of the hour. Not that anything else is funny – the boredom is so suffocating that moving back to the couch would require energy I simply can’t spare.

None of these folks really break the Bravo mold. Over the first ten minutes we’re introduced to a series of varyingly eccentric women, flamboyant gays, would-be gays and one self-loathing gay. The only relief comes in the form of 35-year-old skateboarding Ryan, who, despite giving off the air of an archetypal douche bag, is the only person who offers any sort of intelligent behind-the-scenes commentary. There’s also Lisa, who has the potential to be the voice of black wisdom, but she mostly just looks like a middle-aged Storm from X-Men. Given Marcel’s resemblance to Wolverine, I could easily explore the correlation between the Bravo lineup and X-Men for several hours, but I’ll digress.

Todd Oldham shows up as the much-hyped host, trying to prove that he can offer us more than an affordable line of Target linens. He’s not as entertaining or fun to look at as Heidi Klum or Padma, but he does seem genuinely kind and sympathetic to the contestants, like a poor man’s Tim Gunn. He quickly explains the first challenge and we discover how flawed and essentially useless this show is.

In theory, a show about showcasing interior design would involve redecorating homes, offices, restaurants and any other spaces we encounter in everyday life. Project Runway produces articles of clothing that end up at Banana Republic or on in and advertisement in a magazine. Every episode of Top Chef sees the preparation and execution of different types of meals, and it’s too silly to explain the relevancy of food. But on Top Design they’re apparently just decorating sets in a warehouse; windowless, three-walled rooms – identically empty waiting to be identically average, like an Ikea showroom.

The whole point of reality TV is the infinite space we’re allotted; reality has no boundaries. But like the last episode of a laugh-track sitcom, where the cast walks out and smiles for the audience, Top Design not only removes the fourth wall, it exposes the bizarre and naked space that exists without it. The designs are useless because they’re not in real spaces and most likely dismantled a few hours after they’re completed.

What wasn’t explicitly disappointing about the show was just confusing. There’s a transvestite Arquette sibling? He/She has enough clout to be called a “celebrity judge?” Do the Baldwins have a transvestite? And what’s the difference between a designer and a decorator? In most instances the terms seemed to be used interchangeably, but contestant Heather is quick to reference a difference: “I’m realizing we don’t have any design innovation. We’re being decorators not designers.” I suppose she didn’t like being called a decorator when she was voted off at the episode (with Storm!).

It would be nice to think Bravo could acknowledge this creative failure and stop milking the functional art utters, but there will be at least four other tacky incarnations before they give up. We might be only a season or two away from Top Glassblower or Project Blacksmith.