This Week's Best: Simpsons. Worst: Family Guy.

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Friday:
Miami Medical (S01E05): Proctor seemed really nervous. I love Omar Epps' character. The visual of the whole thing on the chicken and potato was interesting, and it seemed to really get the point across to the donors. Interesting about the condition in the three brothers. I wondered why not a lot of attention was paid to the driver of the car, who was MIA forever. It was to make the point that without a trauma center at a hospital, people fall through the cracks.

[May 21 is the first season's finale already!]

Sunday:
Minute to Win It (Season 1, Week 8): New games?? Already? The show hasn't been on that long... at all!!

Contestant 1: She had pretty makeup and nice eyelashes. I'm sure the boys didn't mind her cleavage, either... especially in the games where she was bending over, like #4... She also has a junkton of moles/freckles... I'm guessing she tans a bit, LoL.

Game 1: Wet Ball: use a spritz bottle to get a balloon from one basket to another. It can't touch the floor, but you do have more than one balloon to try with. Gets it on the second try with over 40 seconds to spare.

Game 2: Ka-Boom: Holding a broom as leverage, hit paper plates to bounce a marshmallow into a cup. Do it three times in a minute... you have about ten tries. She gets the first two easily, but it takes her until she has 20 seconds left to get the third.

Game 3: Junk in the Trunk: 8 ping pong balls in a tissue box strapped to your backside. Jump around to get all of them out. She succeeds.

Game 4: Spoon Frog: Use a teaspoon to fling another teaspoon into a cup. Do it three times in a minute. It kinda seemed like this is one she hasn't really practiced a lot. She eventually got two of them, but ran out of time on the third. On the second round, the first one went in easily, she got the second about the same time she did the first time, but the third spoon failed her until the very end... but she did complete this task with one second to go!

Game 5: Egg Roll: the one where you roll 3 raw eggs with the air from a flapping pizza box. One of her eggs goes out of bounds and she's disqualified. She's also very angry about it, LoL. On her second try, she has great strategy, and gets it with less than 10 seconds to spare.

Game 6: Keep it Up: Blow air to keep two feathers in the air for a minute - you can't let them touch the ground or your body. Pretty early on, it was obvious that it wasn't going to happen, and she loses in about 15 seconds.

Contestant #2: a DJ who wants to start college funds for his sons. At least that's cooler than wanting to buy your mom a house. They're adding music while the games are played now... not a big fan of this idea, gotta say.

Game 1: Nervous Nelly: a pedometer is strapped to each of your arms and legs, and you have to hit 500 total clicks in one minute. I don't know that the way he was moving his arms was as effective as it could have been. Legs 167, and unknown. Arms 176, 177... he did it!!

Game 2: Noodling Around: Using uncooked spaghetti, lift up six pieces of raw penne. Don't use your hands and don't break or drop the pasta. He seems like he hasn't really tried this one... In theory it's not the hardest thing to do, as long as the strand doesn't break. He finished with 16 seconds or so left.

Game 3: Office Dominoes: Set up 11 reams of paper and then knock them over to ring a bell. It looks like it'll be close at one point, but he ends up getting it.

Game 4: Puddle Jumper: Blow a ping pong ball from one cup of water to another. Do it 3 times... two cups are 3" apart, two are 6", and two are 9". Sounds hard. The cups start filled to the brim with water, and you can't refill them at all if you blow out too much. He knows this game pretty well, and gets the first easily. The second is a wash, and knocks out his first one trying it. In the end, the timer goes with no balls in the correct cups. On his second attempt, he doesn't finish, either. But he does get the first two in. Last try... no go. But he got close several times.

The Simpsons (S21E20): Kesha's song as the opener was funny. I don't know if they've done this before, but if they have, I should go watch some others. I didn't know "spaz" was short for a medical condition. Ralph as the lectern was funny. Lisa was completely dumbfounded at the jokes made because she is blonde. The strange way of voting at the meeting was much more disturbing. The Orwellian security was funny but got boring fast. Betting on the weather was rather hilarious. I think I would have made Flanders "tsk" much longer than that, LoL. Bart marking out the blindspots was really clever. How come we never see the rest of the busybodies after Marge quits? I imagine Helen Lovejoy would have some funny comments, LoL. I felt sorry for Flanders' son about to have rats in his mouth!! gross!! I thought the "forensics" joke was funny. Same with Abe's saying that the building "cut him off," LoL. I kinda liked Lisa's hair in that style. Going around shooting down all of the cameras in the town was dumb. Similarly, I thought it was pretty funny that the entire thing was being broadcast in England as reality television, haha.

[May 23 is the season finale]

Family Guy (S08E17): hour-long episode this week. Brian's dead bird was creepy. Stewie was grossing me out hardcore with the suggestion that Brian clean his diaper by eating the crap in there. BLEHHHH. The fact that this dragged on forever made it hard to sit through, and I was glad I had something to focus on on the other screen, LoL. How do people get locked inside a bank deposit vault to begin with? I also thought that the drunk scene was inappropriate. I know people who are morons and would try giving a toddler liquor... :-/ The ear piercing horrified me. That bullet did a TON of ricocheting!! Interesting thoughts about Columbine being a national tragedy or a regional tragedy. The second half of the episode being strange musical numbers was ridiculous as well. I'm glad that I didn't watch this one live so I was able to cut it as short as possible without the commercials, LoL. Don't get me wrong, I love "Shipoopi" as much as the next musical theatre lover, but c'mon now, why do a medley like this??

[May 23 is the season finale]

Monday:
How I Met Your Mother (S05E21): I like Ted's letter system, great idea. I have had more than one friend who could (have) use(d) this system. Marshall and Lily thinking that they are revolutionizing modern marriage was funny. But the two-bed thing wasn't that interesting. What were Lily and Marshall doing looking at bedroom?? If Robin was at my house and put empty cartons back in the fridge, I'd evict her. Creepy events when Ted and Barney both called Robin.

[May 24 is the season finale]

House, M.D. (S06E20): Funny father comment about the car being full of gas, LoL. Crappy timing to go down, tho! How drunk can you be to get into an apartment, fall asleep in another bed, and consequently be escorted by the police home. I was pretty shocked at the treatments he underwent to try and be "straight." I like how House convinced Taub's wife of the ceramics thing. I thought Nicole was rude when she kicked out the ex-lover, without really knowing the whole story. "Is the little gent wearing a tent?" was funny. Nobody seemed to be that interested in singing at the karaoke bar. Putting the male lactation in his coffee was a very strange move by House, but I like that it was only to weird the others out. napkin rings" box gets thrown out without being opened? Why is Cuddy hanging around House? She seems strangely happy to find reasons to come around Greg. Poor House.... he wants to be with Cuddy so badly. :( I'm not happy about House drinking so much all the time, either... but I guess it's better than Vicodin??

[May 17 will be the finale this season]

Little People, Big World (S05E29 & S05E30): Wow, the whole team is going to stay at the Roloffs for the whole training thing. What a pain to fly to Oregon and train to fly to Ireland to play! Seems kinda counter-productive to a point. Really... Matt doesn't think Amy is organized?? I don't get that. She usually has to be the organized one... and very rarely does Matt seem organized... with anything. It hit me that perhaps the focus of the show is really becoming Zach, not the family. And not just these episodes about soccer, either. His travels to Europe with his brother, and even large sections of the episodes where the twins were looking at colleges, graduating, etc. Does dwarf soccer play with a narrower net like the one they were practicing with? haha, Matt said the room should be "immaculated." When did Matt get this personal assistant that never leaves??

Okay, so I guess that Ireland was not timed near the rest of the European adventure after all. I wonder where Jeremy has been during all of this... Matt talks about going to Switzerland with him, but we don't see him at all, except in one shadowed shot. What was Molly wearing? She looked like they were going out West again, LoL. It was nice to see Zach being a lot more social than we normally see him, even around other dwarves. The opening ceremonies looked neat. Oh, wait, there's Jeremy again, LoL. Interesting that it turns out that several of the teammates were also doing track and field events, etc. I really felt for Amy... not only does Matt cause her to have to step down from the DAAA Board, she has to do everything he was supposed to do in Belfast until he arrived. I thought it was neat that Amy and Matt were signed up to play in the singles' bocce tournament, but the fact that he didn't show was sad. I'm glad that they were able to do a last-minute substitution (and then Amy and the sub played eachother for the gold!!).

Tuesday:
Table for 12: nope. I don't understand why we saw one episode from the new season and now nothing. :(

missing the eps "summer," "busy day," "jumping in," "brace yourself," "back to school"

19 Kids and Counting (S04E14): The kids learn how blacksmithing is done. That's pretty cool. The statistic about the worth of the Duggars if they were made of gold was ridiculous and irrelevant. Strange comment by the cameraman about the tree being full of nuts. But at least everyone was amused with the couple of extra leaves "just in case." I could have had more of the blacksmith stuff... see how more kids responded, etc. Why was Amy at the farm? She clearly wasn't interested in what was going on. The daffodil-picking was cute. It was nice to see some of the middle-aged kids hold Josie... Joy looked so emotional! 4 pounds, 4 ounces, so 8 ounces bigger than last week's episode, although we don't know the film date here. She's still looking pretty preemie, but that's to be expected. I hope the skin stops being so translucent soon.

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Off season:
Jon and Kate Plus Eight: still missing the finale, "It's a Crazy Life, But it's Our Life"
Wipeout (June 1, 8pm... then skip to the 22nd...)
The Secret Life of the American Teenager (June 7, 8pm)
The Goode Family (Mondays at 10pm on Comedy Central)
Futurama (June 24th, 10pm)
Cake Boss (May 31, 9pm)
16 and Pregnant / Teen Mom (Teen Mom back this summer, not sure on 16 and Pregnant)
Sons of Tucson (will air the other 9 episodes this summer)
South Park