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Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Project Runway: One of these things does not like the others
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The high: The designers revolt against the dastardly Kenley!
The low: All the tears on the runway. It was heartbreaking to watch them crack under the stress.
Last week I couldn’t take aim at Kenley, whose b**iness I suspected was at least partially an act for the cameras. Or at least partially engendered through the Magic of Editing.
But no, I think she’s really just an unpleasant young woman, and regardless of what happens in the finale, Bravo will probably give her a TV show called “Kenley’s Runway Takeover” or something like that.
Right: Pretty but rough around the edges. (Photo courtesy BravoTV.com.)
Anyway, you could pretty much tell that no one was going home tonight. Ever since Season 3 — when the producers realized that four designers vying for the title is better than three — and since Season 4 — when they decided that it’s not cruel to pull the “We can’t decide on a loser” stunt — we’ve known that Finale Part I calls for a quartet. Hey, the more, the merrier.
Jerell’s dress was lovely, as was Korto’s. I didn’t care for Kenley’s at all (mock turtlenck and a leather belt on an evening dress?) but thought the judges would love Leanne’s dress far more than they did. Yes, that little blue blip in the back looked like an afterthought, but a forgivable one. At any rate, the judges seemed harsher in their overall criticism tonight, like Jerell’s problem with finishing on time. Have they mentioned that before? I don’t recall … ?
By the way, guest judge Georgina Chapman of the Marchesa line answers to “Mrs. Harvey Weinstein.” Yes, she’s married to the producer.
The winner: Jerell. I can’t get over Jerell. I figured him for a goner in the first episodes; then he flew under the radar for a while; finally he starts producing beautiful, wearable designs. Can Jerell win?
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10/2: Parents Television Council files complaint with “Survivor” for Marcus Lehman’s accidental nudity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A couple of days ago, I wrote that I thought the Parents Television Council, which spearheads most protests against curse words and nudity on broadcast TV, wouldn’t get all hot and bothered by CBS’s accidental exposure of Emory Med School grad Marcus Lehman’s privates during the first episode of “Survivor” last Thursday.
I was wrong. Here is the lead from a story in Broadcasting & Television.
The Parents Television Council filed an indecency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against an episode of Survivor: Gabon that featured a brief glimpse of a contestant’s penis.
The FCC’s crackdown on fleeting nudity and swearing is in limbo at the moment due to court cases challenging both, but it was PTC complaints about the Super Bowl and other programming that helped to fuel the FCC’s stepped-up enforcement.
CBS has argued it was fleeting and inadvertent. It’s during an immunity challenge. Lehman is wearing loose fitting boxers.
I’m not going to link to any video of it since it might be a wee bit over the line for ajc.com, but it isn’t hard to find on the Web. (CBS has taken it off its site.) One site even adds music and sets it up in slow mo. True, it fleeting and inadvertent but it’s obvious once you know what to look for.
Interestingly, “Survivor” usually errs on the side of caution when it comes to nudity, blurring out anything that even could be problematic. My favorite was Amanda’s butt area during “Survivor: China,” which was blurred excessively. Here’s what Amanda told Reality TV World about that back in 2007:
Reality TV World: What was up with the constant editing blur the show’s editors seemed to have on you? You were blurred more than Richard Hatch — the guy who regularly walked around completely naked during Season 1. Were you aware of your apparent shorts problem while you were out there?
Amanda: No! Nothing was the problem! My parents call me “fuzz butt.” (laughing) I have no idea what was wrong. Even James said, “I looked at your butt all along, and I didn’t know what was wrong.” They made it seem like I had some huge ugly tattoo on my butt or something.
I have the slightest idea of what was going on. I think it was because the whole [CBS’ Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show with] Janet Jackson [when her boob was exposed]. They really have to be careful about what they show on TV.
-Nudge, who was at Star 94 for four years as the night guy until the end of 2007, has stated a syndicated top 40 night show through Dial Global, set to launch in mid October. He said he’ll be able to do more of his schtick, schtick that Star often reined in the last year he was there. (You know—“Hot Mom Check In, wot wot!” and the like).
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10/1: Huge ratings for the Dawgs/Alabama game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While scripted TV came back with a vengeance last week, the big Nielsen ratings numbers in Atlanta came courtesy of the Presidential debate, the Falcons game and the Bulldogs.
University of Georgia’s painful loss to Alabama Saturday drew a higher-than-average 845,000 viewers on ESPN, by far the biggest performer of the week. That’s not quite Super Bowl level but it’s equal to one-fifth of the entire Atlanta population and 37 percent of TVs that were on.
And regionality certainly came into play: 6.68 million viewers caught the game nationwidr/ Atlanta represented a whopping 13% of that figure, about 10 times greater than the typical show.
In comparison, the Atlanta Falcons loss to the Carolina Panthers Sunday brought in a still potent 555,000 fans on WAGA-TV.
The top scripted show was the season premiere ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” Sunday evening, with about 453,000 viewers (18.7 million nationally). That’s down about 10 percent from last year. The top reality show was the first night of “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC Sept. 22 with 472,000 viewers (21.3 million nationally). That’s on part with a year ago. The top new show is CBS’s “The Mentalist” with 390,000 viewers Sept. 23 (15.6 million nationally) and it held nearly its entire audience last night, a good sign.
On Friday night, when all the major news and broadcast networks aired the Presidential debate, WSB-TV came in on top with about 380,000 viewers, followed by Fox News and CNN, both in the 220,000 range. Collectively, about 1.4 million Atlantans (and 52 million Americans nationwide) caught the debate.
