Notes on "The Amazing Race," Taylor Swift's "Saturday Night Live" and a kind of crazy weekend, after the jump.
And here, a link to this week's DVD column, including "Up."
… including Saturday visits to both the U of Akron foothall game (a rare win over an obnoxiously overconfident Kent State team) and the regular-season finale of the UA men's soccer team (came from behind to complete a perfect, 18-0 run); a mammoth and time-consuming school project, and a little bit of yard work (with the bride doing even more) — all of which made it a treat to relax at last for "The Amazing Race" and "Mad Men."
My notes on the marvelous "Mad Men" season finale are in the previous post. "The Amazing Race" was entertaining enough, and a great relief when it proved to be a non-elimination leg. I like the father and son (and the brothers, and the Globetrotters), so I would have been disappointed by their ouster. And the hay-bale challenge is brutally, especially — as one of my co-workers noted — when it came on the heels of the sandbag-filling challenge. I spent a little of yesterday moving large patio blocks and was aching afterward, and I know it wasn't anywhere near what the contestants had to do.
I recorded Wanda Sykes' first talk show on Saturday, and am dubbing George Lopez's debut tonight, and hope to write something about the new late-night warriors in the days ahead. Or at least to have a few words in my weekly video.
I did get through Taylor Swift's "SNL" and she was an able host and often funny. The monologue song was especially good, and she nailed Kate Gosselin. In fact, the show overall seemed funnier than usual (with a decent Digital Short), although there were dead spots — I start fast-forwarding any time Armisen shows up as the bad comedian, or Wiig as the irritating woman, and the "Really" sketch was not good. But Swift actually got me to stay through most of "The View" parady, and I watched her through a little of the "Scared Straight" sketch before that, too, made me move on.
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I want to support SNL, but they need to stop with the celebrity immitations–Nick Cage was not even close. I think they think 80% of the funny should come just from how the immitator looks like the celebrity.
And if you happened to DVR Family Guy presents:Seth and Alex–delete it. It seems that racist and handicap jokes are more acceptable in cartoon forrm after all.