The Life And Times Of Spoiled Brats - The Secret Life Of The American Teenager, Gossip Girl, Kings and More

The Secret Life of The American Teenager - One Night at Band Camp - Eps. 122

OMG OMG OMG. The baby is coming the baby is coming! I'm assuming the baby will arrive tonight on the season finale of this surprisingly addictive show. I still can't believe how much I'm LOVING this show (from the creator of 7th Heaven, a show I despise with a passion), which is like the anti-Gossip Girl in terms of production value but in all it's low-rent sets and awkward acting, there's some hilarious dialogue and more soapy twists than Serena and Dan have been through.

And now we get to see it from the start! A last week's flashbacks took us back to BAND CAMP! When Ricky first met Amy and got Amy preggers. You gotta admit, the kid's got swagger and his current emotional state (getting him to ask Ashley to be a friend in true desperation) somehow rings true.

And LOVE that Amy is such a spoiled naive brat and is SOOO uninformed and ill-prepared about the pregnancy. Yes it HURTS. You're squeezing a whole HUMAN through your birth canal. And YES, you have one! (Hysterical!)

I also love that everyone somehow finds an excuse to come to the hospital, including Grace's brother Tom. Though as much as like the new Jack this later half of the season, I think it's wrong that Grace is considering going back to him. I am enjoying her friendship with Adrian though. Man, I can't get enough of this show.


Gossip Girl - The Age of Dissonance, The Grandfather - Eps. 218-219

Oh Gossip Girl, how I've missed you and your sarcastic narrations and twisty twisted soapy plots that change faster than the rules to a stimulus package.

And oh how I missed you Dorota! Who keeps Blair in check! Cause I certainly can't keep up with who she's with, who she's against, who wronged her or who she's siding with anymore. It's all getting too complicatedly delicious!

Last week she was all in a rage against Serena for blasting out to Gossip Girl herself, but it wasn't Serena, it was Dan, no it wasn't Dan, it was Rachel. Ah, her rage against Dan continues and now her rage against Rachel is back after the teach destroyed her Yale prospects.

Meanwhile, points for casting NYTimes resident theatre critic Charles Isherwood as NYTimes resident theatre critic Charles Isherwood in his Upper East Side debut. Especially when he loved the messed up version of The Age of Innocence performed by our resident spoiled brats. Yuki in a fat suit was particularly fabulous! Or Nate breaking the fourth wall. Or Dan making out with the disgraced teach Rachel in the costume closet!

In even bigger points for casting, tonight's episode casts Broadway's Aaron Tveit (Broadway's upcoming Next to Normal AND the upcoming Broadway-bound Catch Me If You Can, last years Saved, Next to Normal, Wicked, Hairspray) as Tripp, Nate's cousin. AND James Naughton (Chicago) as Nate's grandfather.

More on Gossip Girl, Kings, Degrassi: TNG, The Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters:

So Nate gets convinced to attend the big family reunion, the same family that pretty much disowned them when his father disgraced them, and gets slowly suckered back into his rich waspy world. Poor Vanessa, who with Dan, convinced the poor guy to basically walk away from the only healthy relationship he had. Oh well, more shots of Nate! and More shots of Aaron Tveit as Tripp!

Lily and Rufus decide to reveal their "lists" which is a clever way to create LOTS of backstory for young Lily in the spinoff (Britany Snow! hurrah!). Basically, Lily was a slut. And Rufus was not.

Meanwhile, slutty spoiled Chuck is trying to stop slutty spoiled Blair from falling into Carter Baizen's slutty spoiled hands (Sebastian Stan, also playing spoiled on Kings, see below). And instead Chuck loses Blair to someone ELSE? AGAIN? Oh Dorota, shouldn't you clean up this mess?


Kings - Prosperity - Ep. 102

Enjoyed the second episode but does everyone bad have to look so nefarious? It's like only the bad guys have bad skin. Lots of wrinkles? You must have been in the sun a lot and it therefore made you want to scheme and plot.

Well, Sebastian Stan doesn't have bad skin but I'm not sure his Jack is really all that bad (yet) and more just playing the poor spoiled misunderstood and underestimated son of the King. He's essentially Chuck on Gossip Girl, Stan's archenemy on that show.

I think now that I know they've filmed the whole season (thanks to RJ) so I know it will actually be wrapped up, puts me at ease about this show. I'm not sure I could watch this forever but I'm loving the whole production so far. Plus Brian Cox as the secret overthrown king hiding in some lair underneath King Silas' compound? Awesome!

I'm not sure if I'm getting all the symbolism and all the warring sides because it's either too complicated or too simple (and I'm just thinking it's complicated) but it's all kinda fun to watch and it feels all very grande!


Degrassi: The Next Generation - Touch of Grey, Heart of Glass - Eps. 815-816

That whole scene where Kelly gets caught with Emma's pot seemed a bit too coordinated. Of COURSE he gets caught while trying to dump her stash. How convenient.

Meanwhile, cutiepie (and a sort of younger Canadian version of Zac Efron, no?) K.C. (Samuel Earle) is apparently a rageaholic. Seriously? Even for Degrassi, that seemed to come out of nowhere to try to give him an "issue".

Then Alli continues her pursuit of Johnny only to sleep with him, but in a bigger shocker, Johnny was ALSO a virgin AND seems super sweet about it all. (Seriously, if you cut Scott Paterson's blond tresses, he's actually a really handsome fella) It was actually kind of a sweet episode, even though we knew this was coming all along.


The Amazing Race - Alright Guys, We're at War! - Ep. 1406

Camels!

Okay, so last week the flight attendants finally avoided elimination but alas, nothing really changed this week and it was the end for the skyhags (I've been one so I can say that). Not much new except that Mike and Mel continue to surprise. I was just thinking poor Mel seems to get all the hard challenges but Mike seemed to have noticed this week was a bad challenge to give his older father to do (to carry buckets of water back and forth).

I also think if Victor isn't out, he needs to come out now. Seriously, this trip seems to be a whole awakening for him.


Desperate Housewives - A Spark to Pierce the Dark - Ep. 518

The one where Edie gets killed. And where Orson almost gets killed.

I know the big shock was that Dave didn't end up killing Edie Britt and in a twist of fate, her escape lead to her own demise when she crashed into an electric pole and fried herself. How undignified and unsexy? Man, Marc Cherry really had it out for Nicolette didn't he?

Meanwhile, I'm actually liking the idea of Lynette working with Carlos (as it finally mixes in the men with the housewives' lives, though can she even really be called a housewife anymore?) but the storyline seemed more filler. Still, the comeuppance against Carlos' ex-now-VP (the much missed Leslie Boone, though I didn't really buy her sudden turn as a meanie) was fun, especially with Lynette pushing Gabi's girls to be bad.

I didn't care for Orson's continued downfall either except that it brought in more of Andrew to show up in a few scenes (but really, way too few).

I did love Susan with the return of ex-husband Karl. if only so that she could throw a can of paint on him in front of the headmaster.

Still, this was really the episode Dave was supposed to kill Katherine and where Edie catches onto his grand plan. Now what's the next twist?!


Brothers & Sisters - Spring Broken - Eps. 319

The episode where Ryan becomes a dickwad plot device again and turns Justin against Rebecca. And where Holly conveniently becomes nice when Tommy disappears and is let off the hook. Okay. Let's MOVE ON! And make Ryan nice again, cause I like looking at his face!

At least Greg Berlanti moved Matt Letscher over from his other show Eli Stone and brings him on as Kitty's new potential... something. Man, when did Letscher get so sexy? Loved him on The New Adventures of Old Christine but I still remember him as the annoying douchebag on Good Morning, Miami (yes, I don't know why I remember that show, but I do).

And Sarah goes BACK to Ojai. Again. And leaves hippieville. Too bad, I kinda liked the hippieville storyline. Plus it finally gave Eric Christian Olsen a respectable role for once.

Vance at http://tapeworthy.blogspot.com