The Wordy Shipmate

Suburgatory and Awkward

These two shows are so made for each other, Tessa and Jenna should be bffs!

X Factor

Now I know y’all are nuts about US X Factor (LA Reid is a fuck awesome judge so far, but will he be a good mentor?) but in 2011, the UK version is where it’s at. Random thoughts on the first live show as follows:

-Kelly Rowland’s got this shit in the bag (if they had to replace Cheryl Cole in the US version, they should have brought Kelly in). Her acts are all amazing. Mischa B’s incredible version of “Rolling in the Deep”, Sophie Habibis blindsiding everyone with her gorgeous “Teenage Dream”, Ameilia Lily’s awesome “Billie Jean” and Diana Vickers 2.0 Janet Devlin’s amazing “Fix You”. It’s really unfair that one of them has to go home this early because of some stupid twist but other than that, look for a girl to win this year unless…

-The Groups may just shake up X Factor history by not only having a girl group go deep in the competition, but have a group win altogether. Tulisa is an awesome mentor and her acts are some of the best groups the show has ever seen. I love Two Shoes (they are freaking adorable), Rythamix (I keep listening to their version of “Superbass” over and over again) and The Risk, Nu Vibe is pretty cool to. I also love that Kelly has astronomical expectations for the groups, I’d love to see her handle them next year.

-Louie is still Louie. With the amount of “it” being brought by the girl judges, he’s kinda lagging. He’s turning his acts into oldies, he’s lucky Goldie quit, his only real shot at the finale is Sammi (and Jonjo but…) and that’s only if he doesn’t fuck it up by giving her terrible song choices.

-Gary is the worst mentor of the bunch. He’s just like Simon, he talks a big game but doesn’t really back it up. He’s made really shitty song selections and the styling of his acts are all garrish (they all look gay as fuck except for, ironically, the gay dude).

Here’s a Buffy confession for you…

Aside from the really fantastic episodes like ‘The Body’, ‘Hush’ or ‘Becoming’ where the show is at its most poetic and altogether a prime example of the highest quality of televised storytelling, A good chunk of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ kinda sucks. It easily gets overly melodramatic for no reason, almost to cheesy soap opera levels, the production values are depressingly laughable and the lead characters quickly become incredibly unlikeable. Xander, for instance, went from being the dorky underdog who pined for Buffy to becoming this annoying, useless lapdog who masked his insecurities by playing the comedian of the group (a role Buffy herself fills better). Meanwhile, Willow went from being the lovable good girl who was in love with Xander and then later with Oz to suddenly becoming a lesbian as if she was never interested in boys ever. I’d complain about her being a smug elitist spell-crazy bitch, but that was addressed in Season 6 so it was all part of the story, though I’m still cross at how she never really took full responsibility for killing Warren and taking Buffy out of freaking Heaven.

I will say though that Buffy herself is one of the most fantastically dimensional characters ever developed. It’s kind of the opposite of Harry Potter where Harry is a detestably bland main character while his supporting cast is so much more interesting. Buffy is fantastic, you relate to her in every way while still having a real distinct personality, that’s why the show works so well. Although thinking about i guess my main gripe with the show is that I do not like Xander and Willow at all. For all of Buffy’s development, Xander and Willow’s felt very half-assed and it makes me kind of hate them.

TV Things That Are Ending That I Am Pissed Off About

• United States of Tara
• Survivor’s dignity
• Haley Reinhart’s run on American Idol
• American Idol’s credibility
• Cheryl Cole’s involvement with U.S. X Factor