Inexplicable

Will someone explain to me why these guys now have ANOTHER show on television?

Two rapping brothers who are famous because of their awful dating shows, searching for Sasquatch and other legendary monsters in swamps and forests and...

Um...why?

Especially when the people who actually do this sort of thing for a living are FAR more entertaining:


The folks on Swamp People are just...real people. Not caricatures. Not wannabes. They just do what they've been doing for generations: Hunt alligators and fish and take care of their families and pass on family traditions.

Personally, I don't love the hunting/killing aspect of Swamp People, just because I hate the idea of slaughtering animals, period. But I do eat meat, so I can't be a total hypocrite. (Also, alligator is tasty.) The alligators aren't hunted for sport, nothing goes to waste, and the people on the show at least appear to do it responsibly and within the law. And they're...compelling personalities.

And they aren't rapping brothers who are famous because of their awful dating shows.

I'm sure not everyone agrees with me. Which is why Real and Chance: Legend Hunters exists in the first place.


Blech.

Tasty, science-y, with a dash of weird/adorable

My latest DVR go-to:


If you haven't heard of the show, it follows head chef Omar Cantu and his kitchen staff at his restaurant, MOTO, in Chicago. The hook: They use their kitchen like a laboratory, take experimental cooking (yay!) to a whole new level, and then serve the best results to their customers.

Since it airs on Planet Green, all the episodes/experiments have a green bent to them. For example, they invented edible (and, therefore, easily degradable) packaging material:

They created packaging peanuts that looked, functioned and actually protected a shipped glass vase just like their Styrofoam counterparts, but tasted like popcorn, strawberry and other flavors and were completely edible. (Note to the creators of the Touchdown/Butter Jesus: NOT a good idea for the next iteration.)

Since my kitchen doesn't include a centrifuge and a supply of liquid nitrogen, it's highly unlikely I'd be able to actually make most of what the team is doing, so the appeal of the show isn't personal instruction. Their experiments are just really...cool. :)

And socially relevant: In one show, they propose a solution to world hunger by creating dishes out of edible plants that normally are too bitter or nasty to actually eat (e.g., marigolds, and the weeds growing out of your sidewalk) but are made tasty by first eating Miracle Fruit, a fruit that fools your tastebuds into thinking bitter/sour things taste good.

What completely hooked me into the show: the staff, all of whom are adorable and totally excited about their experiments and how it might actually make a difference in the world. Omar (who was homeless as a kid, and knows from hunger) gets so little-kid-excited about things like shooting bratwursts with paintballs filled with hot sauce that I just want to put him in my pocket and carry him around.

Even if you don't really care about cooking (I generally don't) or if you don't give a crap about the environment (...), the show is just really...cool. I know, I already said that. But it is! They make fake sushi out of watermelon! And a chicken nugget using only things a chicken would actually eat! And EDIBLE PACKAGING PEANUTS!

Oh, just go watch it.

:)

"Chuck" is stupid but Adam Baldwin is foxy

I don't know if any of you watch the show Chuck; since it narrowly escaped being canceled, it would seem unlikely that you do.

Anyway.

We watched the first two seasons, and thought it was cute and funny and quirky. This season...not so much. We watched the first three hours (two-hour premiere plus another hour) and...eh.

The whole premise is that a nerdy schlub inadvertently becomes invaluable to the U.S. government and, although he has no skills to speak of, gets dragged around with a bunch of super-spies, one of whom he falls in love with.

And the other of whom is Adam Baldwin. Who, besides being dreamy, is amusingly grouchy and looks as though he could crush a man's thigh just by looking at it while tenderly brushing your hair away from your face and feeding you grapes.

Not that I have ever daydreamed about this. I'm just saying.

Something tells me that, if I do end up watching the entire season, he is going to be the only reason.