So, who knew the Hills would pull off a surprise twist series ending? Sure, we expected the montage – a cut through all the girls’ lives, loves, and bitch fights throughout the 4 years on air – but what wasn’t expected was the direct acknowledgement to the shows’ biggest criticism – reality, or fiction?

At the end as we’re meant to be emotionally reacting to Brody and Kristin parting ways – bam – idyllic California skyline is a synthetic sheet, and Kristin’s street is just a set. Faux? What?!

So.. is that a nod and a nose tap to say ‘you were all right, this is entirely fake’ – but surely, Spencer Pratt can NOT be that crazy. Or he deserves an Emmy. Did Heidi really get all of that work done, or is that a plastic body double? Just like with the Lost finale – this poses several more questions than any answers. Brody and Kristin have both said something to the effect of ‘you’ll never know what was real, or fake’ – and besides, we know we’ll see Brody on anything that MTV produces and Kristin already has a new show or 2 in the pipeline.. but what was real?! Did Audrina *actually* like/love/lust after Justin Bobby? More than anything, I swear that it cannot be real. Surely. SURELY.

James Clement (no, not the Collingwood Magpies AFL football player) is my favourite Survivor of all time. I can say that. He’s now been in three seasons, and two seasons in a row (for China, then Fans vs Favourites) was given loads of money, as the viewer’s favourite.

James, is a Louisiana gravedigger. Oh yes, he is. He is the most ripped, muscle-bound player I’ve ever seen. Yet, that doesn’t make him the most threatening. He doesn’t always win. Nor does he always make smart decisions, or see the writing on the wall. Hence in his inaugural season in China, he held two immunity idols.. but got voted off without using them. At first, he was kinda quiet, he’s acknowledged that he’s not a ‘soclal player’ but there were incidents in which he’d have to participate in the social game, as for the most part Survivor becomes about that personal vote at the final tribal council; are you going to vote for who was the most devious, or the nicest, and most deserving?

Courtney, in the current Villains tribe made her name in the China season also, as she had a snarky quick-witted manner about her, and had some brilliant one liners that were perfect for the trailers, and moments away from the other contestants, just talking to the camera. However, James makes use of metaphors or ordinary words in the funnest of ways; like, ‘What in the Nickelodeon is goin’ on round here?!’, or when he talked to Parvati about her scheming and said she was a ‘definite apple-chewer’. That may seem like he was just saying she eats apples, but in context, he said she was like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Couldn’t just leave the apples alone.. See what I mean? He’s adorable!

In this most recent episode; Amanda wanted to help him along with his social game, and taught him some banana etiquette.

Here, in some footage not seen in the episode that aired, James talks about ‘Banana-Gate’.

Poor Jessica Simpson, she really gets some harsh, and vindictive treatment. One could say, that’s the price she has paid for inviting cameras in to her newly wedded bliss with former boy-band member Nick Lachey on MTV Show Newlyweds. It could have also contributed to the demise of their marriage, with the fly on the wall show highlighting Jessica’s ‘naivete’ if you will.

Once that was over, any handsome fella she’s been seen with for a coffee, let alone dinner has had every detail has been pored over by the paparazzi, or with help recently by John Mayer in an interview with Playboy magazine..

If its not who she’s dating, its what she’s wearing, how much she weighs (which of course happens to any grade celebrity) and goodness, what is that bright blue eyeshadow she’s wearing?

Via an interview with Oprah Winfrey about what she’s dealt with, and how she’s risen above it, she introduced a new series called the Price of Beauty where she, her best friend Cacee Cobb and other best friend and makeup artist/hair stylist Ken Paves travel to eight countries to talk to local women in what beauty means to them, via different methods and what defines them as women.

The first episode takes the trio to Thailand, where they meet the host of the local version of Next Top Model, who advise them to eat bugs, have a Thai massage (not relaxing at all) and to meet a lady who used whitening creams so severely it disfigured her face, leading to her husband leaving her and for her to feel ashamed to be seen in public. Its explained that in Thailand, apparently the more tanned you are the more it means you must work in the outdoors and therefore be lower class, so whitening creams of all types are used in order to make oneself more ‘rich’.

Jessica handles it so sweetly, and she goes in blindly – allowing the viewer to experience something with her, and react as she realises that beauty is so individual, nobody should feel insecure because of someone else’s ideals, or because of social pressure. Easier said than done but it’d be nice to turn off the negativity and collective pressure that society and media place on us.

Whilst the show, and Jessica have been dismissed – I personally think she deserves some credit where its due. Its a valid message, and a strong one – and one I think we can all relate to, and learn from by looking at cultures and reflecting on what we can learn from each other, rather than via judgement.

For more details on the show, check out the official website here

So, as far as stereotypes go – when you watch as much TV and movies as I do, and enjoy music on the train blasting in my ears, exercise really is a difficult thing to schedule in between episodes of Glee and Flash Forward.

I did try to keep a personal trainer, though I’m too stubborn in that each time he tried to increase the speed on the treadmill as I jogged like Lloyd Bridges in Seinfeld – I’d slap his hand away. I tried to continue with the walking group near my house but its either weather that stops me, or the fact that I’m about three decades younger than the youngest person strolling through leafy inner-city suburbs on a weeknight. Just can’t do it! And I’m not about to indulge in info-mercial promoted home products. (Because apparently they’re harder to put together than an Ikea bookshelf)

So upon browsing a DVD store for a new TV show to watch (once I finish season 4 of Dr Who – its coming up, people!), I came across exercise DVDs with cast members from So You Think You Can Dance! If anything is going to motivate me to shake my booty – its going to be a DVD where I can learn a routine, pretend Cat Deeley is commentating and hope that nobody is ‘judging’. Perhaps I can open each start to the exercise with a 10 second booty-shaking introduction? Here is…. KIMBERLEY! Or Kim-Hono-Hee-Hee-Poi from Hawaii :P

The first DVD – ‘Tone & Groove’ features Twitch, Dimitry and Katee – whilst the second one ‘Cardio Funk’ has Lauren, Travis and Courtney G – both teaching an exercise routine in their dance specialty. I can’t wait to try Twitch’s hip hop – though I’m sure I’m not going to be able to slide across the floor the way he can. (Especially my carpeted living room). I can’t wait to fluidly move and burn fat with Travis’ contemporary routine – after all, who can forget his Jeanine & Jason routine from last season? Along with each routine in the different dance styles, there’s warm up and cool down included with the option to remove the step by step instructions once you’ve mastered the steps.

Whilst I have a Jillian Michaels (from the Biggest Loser) exercise DVD to try out, I think learning dance moves in the privacy of my own home to funky music will be just the motivation I need. It should be the perfect pop cultural sneaky way of telling myself that I’m my own reality TV show but that in no way am I going to become a Biggest Loser contestant!

**Warning** This post contains spoilers for the season 19 premiere of Survivor: Samoa. Scroll down if you don’t want to be spoiled!

Last week was the premiere of Survivor: Samoa. Can you believe it’s the 19th season of the ground-breaking reality show? I’ve seen it from Day ONE (though, not Marquesas as Channel 9 skipped that entirely). Back on topic, who would have thought I’d still be just as excited as can be that there is a new season, in another ‘mysterious, largely untouched by civilisation’ location. Although seriously – when will they do something like the Arctic? Now that would be more challenging than Samoa, surely!

Normally I wouldn’t really post about a reality show, as generally it is something one would have to commit to, seeing as the first episode is generally only focussed on exposition and seeing the ‘characters’ get comfortable in their surroundings, or try to assert some power based on their ‘real life’ situations. Generally nothing too stand-out for the first episode.

Not in this case. Generally in the last couple of seasons, you’ve had one or two especially scheming characters. People that want to win at any expense and will play the ‘social’ game, but also try to be as competitive in the physical challenges also. And generally, through their white lies and whatnot they’re still likable (think Todd from Survivor: China) oh so devious, and sly but still a jovial, adorable guy.

Here is where Survivor: Samoa’s opening episode alone will now flip that on its head; I have now met the vilest, most offensive ‘character’ I can think of in recent history. (Bear in mind, I’m sure some of you may come up with more, on other shows I don’t watch – feel free to comment with examples!)

Here are a few examples. Stout & bald, beer-bellied oil-company owner Russell props himself up as there to win the game. He’s not there to make friends, he’s not there because he’s a ‘die-hard’ fan like some contestants have been in recent series. He then goes onto explain that in the process of being the last one standing; he will go out of his way to make surviving, and the ‘game’ itself miserable for everyone else.

He approaches a couple of the young women on his tribe, and wants to be smart, making an alliance on day one with people that he’d be least expected to be tight with; then in the one-on-one camera chat calls it the ‘dumb-ass girl alliance’. Urgh.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he then tells a campfire story about being trapped in Hurricane Katrina. His beloved dog dying. Being a fireman and doing his best to survive. NONE of it true. Absolutely abhorrent!

To end the night on an even higher note, whilst the camp is asleep he empties out ALL the water canteens, and throws a tribe-mate’s sock into the campfire. I cannot even remember in the past, in 19 seasons if someone has been so malicious in this way. But as Jeff Probst blogged about here – this new villain is sure to be a very big reason why people will tune in. Just to see what he does, and the very likely wreckage he will leave in whatever manipulative story he tells, or creature comfort he ruins in order to serve his own evil purpose.

Last week on Australian TV, the finale of True Beauty went to air. (I believe this race was run and won in February in the U.S) But this became the talk of Twitter on a Thursday night. It was television watching that could replace comfort eating. It was comfort watching. Bad for you but it feels so right! The premise of the TV show were that ten contestants who thought they were going to be honoured with a ‘True Beauty’ trophy or honour – were actually going to be tested on outer and inner beauty, via hidden challenges in order to show the judges if they were also beautiful on the inside.

Pageant contestant, and queen of the oh-so-faux (or is it?) smile Julia Anderson won. The judges commented that she was under the radar, and nobody ever saw her coming on the show. Well of course not. She was nice. She always passed the challenges. She was decent, honest, charitable, compassionate. In TV terms that equates to ‘boring’. She wasn’t 100% perfect, and she still had some bitchy things to say about some contestants, but nowhere near on the scale of the other contestants – far more memorable because of how nasty, how vain, or how mean they were to even little kids.

Ray, who was my eye candy favourite in one challenge ignored a portly child sitting on his own, instead preferring to sit with the ‘cool kids’ and upon the loner kid walking away said ‘That kid’s going to grow up to be a sniper’. Shocking. But it was a scene that you couldn’t turn away from! The other kids at the table (actors) were offended. The judges were shocked.. and inevitably, Ray got booted with that particular comment served up to him after asking him ‘Do you think you’re a truly beautiful person?’

What does that say about just what keeps us entertained? Or how the winner of a TV show may not actually be that memorable? It just goes to show that being a villain or villainess may be a better option if you want more than 15 minutes of fame (though the picture above was published in People magazine’s Most Beautiful People issue as part of the prize). Just look at Heidi Montag. Look at Kristin Cavallari. They get invited out SO often because publicity is what they’ll get. Perez Hilton. Look at him. Surely he only has so many acquaintances because celebrities are far too afraid of incurring a child-like drawn on penis on a photo of them splashed across his website. Ah, fame.

Here it is. My favourite dance of Season 5 – So You Think You Can Dance. Without spoiling who the winner is (and this dance airs tomorrow, on 15/8 here in Australia) I think its okay for me to share this with you now. After seeing all of the episodes, and agreeing with a lot of the judges picks in the finale – this, Travis Wall’s debut as a choreographer (runner up from Season 2) is my favourite. He choreographed a contemporary in which Jason and Jeanine just take my breath away and make my heart race all within a minute and a half to this song, an accoustic version of If It Kills Me by Jason Mraz.

What kills me about this – is that later on, you find out that the kiss that closes it, oh so sweetly, was not even choreographed. Be still.. my sentimental heart.

Tonight airs the second episode of the Australian version of ’10 Years Younger in 10 days’ hosted by Miss Tina Sparkles, er, I mean Sonia Kruger – something I was looking forward to initially. I mean, I *love* a good before and after! And the fact that they had people that looked immeasurably older than they actually were, was fascinating! How would they do it? What fashion styling experts could they bring in to stop them dressing from gramps or nannas? But the premiere episode that aired last week brought a kind of a shock to the system. In the hour that I sat there watching it (and tweeting with friends over certain moments with ‘what?! They said WHAT?!’) I will be watching tonight; but it could be the last time.

In the age of Biggest Loser where they have obese people learning a healthy lifestyle, but also exercise an unrealistic amount of time a day in a short amount of time; in the end, they are still learning something valuable about living a healthy lifestyle in order to live longer. I’m definitely not under the naive belief that any kind of ‘reality show’ is completely realistic, and that it represents the true circumstance of what they are presenting. After all, it has to be in order to be more entertaining. However; in the case of Channel 7′s ’10 Years Younger in 10 Days’ – they are turning this mentality on its head. Becoming younger can be done quickly! With lots of money to visit a cosmetic dentist, or a plastic surgeon! (Note the sarcasm here..)

The first couple shown on last week’s episode lived in a mining town in Australia; no makeup, ordinary clothes, and the husband looked like Rupert Boneham from Survivor: Pearl Islands. A pirate essentially! (Not in a Jack Sparrow type of way though..)

Maybe I’m old fashioned but I thought okay; shave the beard, get a facial, don’t look like a pirate; look younger! Stop wearing flannel? Take another year? I mean – generally, people that live in a mining town, and work in that industry are NEVER going to wear heels, or have access to designer labels. Why would they need to?

Yet to encourage seeing a plastic surgeon? Peering at you wondering what ‘problems’ with your face, what can we ‘fix up’ – what kind of message is that sending? Do they even try to explore the reasons that they’ve ‘let themselves go’ and why they want to look ‘better’? (Actually have they tried exercising – because when the guy was on a spin bike; it was as if the gym was a completely foreign concept)

The message being conveyed in this program are actually quite damaging; because apart from being displayed in a glass case… (I’M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION!) and having strangers say wow I think she looks OLD, or whoa.. he looks like a grandpa – any self esteem they had would be shot to the ground.

Doesn’t one have to be content with themselves; or content with their partners? The after-shots were great, and of course you’re going to feel better after thousands upon thousands of dollars have gone into you being styled to look like you could walk down a runway. But for anyone not currently on a ‘reality’ TV show; what does that mean for us? I certainly will NOT be stepping into a glass case just to be judged on the street. I know I don’t look like a B grade TV star, or have had work done to lift my eyelids, or enhance my cheekbones, and no I have not had a colostomy like they forced that poor guy to go through – but ya know what? Even without that – if I look older or younger than my age – that is not what I base living my life on.

Sometimes, there are TV shows, or movies I love so much; that I almost find too difficult to write about because I just want to do them justice. I want to emphatically declare my love for them, and in the right way in order to show people that they are worth watching/listening to/reading and so forth. So if you were reading my Twitter page, you might have seen how crazily deliriously happy I’ve been with the calibre of dancers in this season’s So You Think You Can Dance Australia. Of course, that says nothing about what I think about the judges.. but that’s a whole other post.

Tonight was the finale, and every Sunday night has been an absolute blast! Last season was in no way as exciting as this season. I loved that Napoleon & Tabitha choreographed some of my favourite dances (NappyTabs as they are affectiontely known) and it even introduced a really talented choreographer in one of last year’s contestants, Marko Panzic. Jason Gilkison was back, Kelly Abbey was there.. it was just really inspiring and made me dance around the living room!

But you’re wondering. Why the subject title? Oh. I had to cheer myself up with watching some favourite dances tonight. My favourite dancers Ben & Amy were the first two to go in tonight’s top 4 finale. THE FIRST. Leaving, Charlie, a self taught hip hop dancer; nice enough but.. safe? Smiley? Nice? And Talia,a professionally trained ballet dancer turned all around versatile lovely dancer. But, when she received compliments, when she would try new genres of dance, she never seemed genuinely humble, or thankful, or grateful for her place there. So, that detracted from her quality, or her deserving to win – in my opinion. I guess perhaps I’m in the minority – as Australia voted for her to win. But I’m sticking with my opinion. Heck, I’m still bitter that Charlie beat BJ into the top four.

So.. to console myself ; here are links to my favourite performances throughout the year!

Amy & BJ’s Contemporary to ‘Halo’ – This is definitely one of my favourite songs, but this soft playful performance turned it into a song possibly about missing someone gone from life; and turned it into a happy, uplifting dance about proposing to a lover.

Talia & Ben’s hip hop to Diva – A better video than Beyonce’s own clip? Haha, I thought this was a funky dance to the song, and Talia definitely rocked it in this one and Ben is just so smooth with the hop hop genre!

Talia & BJ’s lyrical hip hop to Dead & Gone Probably the very reason why I suddenly couldn’t stop listening to T.I’s Dead & Gone, and this one got a standing ovation from the crowd and judges. Could be because this was choreographed by NappyTabs, and it reminded me of how much I love, love lyrical hip hop.

Could be because I also loved NappyTabs’ choreography work in the U.S previous season. Remember, Mark & Chelsie’s dance to Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love? In case you haven’t seen it, click here

Timomatic was also a phenomenal mover, and so charismatic – and it wasn’t nearly as obvious until the solo he performed the night he was voted off. I’d never heard the crowd cheer as much as when he danced to Bounce here

Ben & Amy’s contemporary to ‘Fall For You’ was just breathtaking. The costumes were breathtaking, thanks to the passionate performance from both of them, I was cheering at the TV. Also where I got the screencap for this post from; this & the Dead & Gone dance could be my favourite. I really can’t pick!

Rate the post, comment with your thoughts; agree or disagree!

I video weddings. But I hate weddings.

I’m still reeling over the last few episodes of Survivor, and the last few tribal councils. Just when we thought that this season was missing a blindside or two, bam.. Kenny is controlling things. Randy is the meanest, nastiest contestant I can think of, Corinne and Bob are still unsure of their next move, and they’re on the outs. Knowing that – how can they still think they have a chance, and why don’t they still think Ken is a threat at all. When are they going to make a move on him?

I just love that Randy tried to turn his natural nastiness into an act! I love that he said I’m really gonna blow it, crash and burn… as if he wasn’t actually crashing, and burning, and having a massive tantrum. I’ve never seen a food auction that fiery! (And where was the hidden BAD food?!) the ones that are covered up, and before you know it, you’ve spent $300 on rice. I mean, that would be hilarious, and mean? But still, I was surprised that everything there was GOOD stuff!

I felt so sorry for Bob, I wanted him to pick comfort when he went to Exile Island, and to think that it was such a waste.. AND he shared the fact that he had a fake idol with the one person who’s BEEN to Exile Island at least 5 times. Oh Bob… However, I guess he redeemed himself by having the last laugh on Randy, but he was SO played.

What a moment when Crystal shouted out her vote. It just shows the proximity of the voting ‘altar’ to where they sit at Tribal Council, the fact that they usually have to whisper their votes, but it was quite clear who she was voting for.. just like, was it the first time – Jeff had to ask who voted for ‘CC’, since it could have been anyone.. Oh man. And the way the whole council played out, Corinne smiling and thinking a ha, I got you! And everyone else smiling.. did she notice that? Was she oblivious? Then the fake idol once again being thrown into the fire. Thank Jaime for that legacy! But Sugar was really, really over the top. Isn’t the one with the big heart? Crying all the time? Wanting to find herself, and such? I think she enjoyed herself a little too much.. If you read Jeff’s blog, you will see that even he was unnerved by that laugh and how much she enjoyed Randy’s departure.