House season 4 finale

WOW! What an absolutely amazing finale!

By far my favourite single episode of House bar none. After seeing Amber in the first few epsiodes who would have thought her death would be so moving. Watching Wilson and House in action was a pleasure and seeing Wilson break down was heartbreaking.

Next season we get to see what happens in the aftermath of Amber's death. Will House and Wilson go their separate ways? What will happen to 13 now that she knows she has Huntingtons?

Dexter Season 3 thoughts

After being disappointed with season 2 I was relieved to discover that Dexter was back on track with a brilliant 3rd series. The main reason for my enjoyment had to be the addition of Miguel Prado to the mix, along with his psychotic brother Ramone, the Prado's certainly kept me entertained.

Dexter didn't off many people this season but his growing friendship with Miguel ended up leaving a few bodies. It was was a little odd seeing Dexter having trouble figuring out how much of a nut job Miguel was because he's usually on to these things pretty quickly. But now Dexter is a married man and with a baby on the way season 4 is going to be interesting.

Deb had a pretty good year too, getting her shield and bagging her man Antoine. Although one loose end that didn't get any closure was the whole IA investigation on Quinn which seemed to vanish. Hopefully the storyline was just getting started and it concludes next season.

I've got high hopes for season 4, hopefully they can build on this seasons stellar work.

House Season 4

I'm absolutely loving Season 4 of House. I think the addition of all the cast members was a little claustrophobic to begin with, I quite like the final 6 (I'm on episode 8) with Kutner and Cutthroat Bitch as my two favourite characters from the new intake. It's also nice to see Chase, Cameron and Foreman back although it would have been better if their returns were delayed a little so they made more of an impact. The only gripe so far is with the fact that there isn't enough Wilson so far!

The Prisoner

I hadn't seen the original but when I read the synopsis for the remake by AMC I was excited. With Sir Ian McKellen in a starring role I thought this mini series couldn't fail. Unfortunately it did. The opening few scenes were promising but soon things just became a blurry confusion and it soon became hard to follow. It was a chance missed I'm afraid.

Dexter Season 3

I absolutely hated Season 2 of Dexter for two very good reasons. Firstly the death of Sergeant James Doakes who was quite easily the baddest ass of all bad asses. It was such a shame the character got killed off as he was a great antagonist for Dexter. But the main reason was the character Lyla, it was a terrible storyline and I just wasn't convinced. And her British accent just sounded so off it kind of got annoying. Those two reasons were why I put off tuning in to season 3 until recently and to be honest I'm not hooked as I was with season 1.

The murder of Oscar is obviously going to take up most of the season and I'm sure it will end up with Miguel Prado suspecting Dexter at some point. The case itself doesn't sound that great but I'll have to wait and see if things improve on that front. The storyline involving Debra seems a bit more intriguing and I'm sure Deb will end up helping out Internal Affairs. Then we have the whole Rita being pregnant situation which I'm really not too sure about, but I should have seen it coming with all the sex Dexter and Rita were having in the first episode!

Hopefully things will pick up and Dexter will hit the heights of season 1.....

The Tournament

I'm not sure why I decided to watch The Tournament, a film that came and went without a murmur. The premise of a battle to the death tournament has been done to death the last being The Condemned starring Stone Cold Steve Austin. But despite knowing the film would probably suck, I still decided to invest ninety minutes of my life to this and I'm glad I did. Mainly because I was supposed to paint the garden fence, but it began to rain so I saved myself from getting wet. The film though was terrible!

If you're looking to sign a bad ass black man for a role you go for Samuel L Jackson, if you can't afford him you may settle for Laurence Fishbourne, if you're on a tighter budget you may have to plump for Ice Cube or Wesley Snipes, but if you're really desperate then you're left with Ving Rhames who plays said bad ass in The Tournament. Ving isn't exactly bad in this, but he's not great either, then again the script and dialogues he had to work with meant he was on a loser from the get go.

Joshua Harlow (Ving Rhames) is the reigning champion of an underground tournament hosted by some dude called Power (Ian Cunnigham). The rules of the tournament are simple, 30 of the worlds top assassins are pitted against each other, the winner gets $10,000000 dollars and the title of the Worlds No. 1. Seven years later having retired from a life of violence, Joshua is lured back in to the tournament after his wife is murdered and one of the other assassins competing in the tournament is alleged to be the culprit. Meanwhile, the assassin with a heart, Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu) finds herself having to protect alcoholic priest Father McAvoy (Robery Carlyle) after a surgically implanted tracking device used to keep tabs on the assassins finds its way in to Father McAvoys coffee. The two go on the run as a host of assassins close in on them.

As mentioned earlier, the story is nothing new, in fact The Tournament lacks innovation and variation from its predecessors making it just another movie with an ensemble cast and lots of gruesome kills. With the cast at his disposal, Scott Mann missed out on an opportunity to make a half decent movie but instead we get a rehashed movie that carries very little entertainment value.

Only watch this if the only other option is Death Race!

Hells Kitchen vs Top Chef

I've been watching loads of Top Chef lately and I couldn't help but make comparisons with Hell's Kitchen. So I thought I'd compare the two shows and decide which is better!

Contestants (or Cheftestants as I read somewhere!)
Top Chef win this hands down, the competitors are all talented and have a decent amount of experience. Hell's Kitchen picks less talented individuals, sometimes even picking people who work in waffle houses or steak houses.

The Prize
Top Chef offers a cash prize of $10,000, a feature in Food and Wine magazine and the opportunity take part in a 'food classic' whatever one of those may be! Hell's Kitchen claims that the winner gets to become head chef at a 5 star hotel's restaurant. Are you kidding me? There is no chance any 5 star establishment is going to allow a reality show contestant to be the executive chef in their kitchen! Besides the proof of the pudding lies with previous contestants, Heather from Season 2 was named senior chef not executive chef at Terra Rosa (she's now a sous chef in Season 6!) and The Rock from season 3 had only a year as head chef at his location before his contract expired and it appears season 4 champ Christina isn't doing anything major either. So it appears that HK sometimes bends the truth when describing some of the prizes!

Challenges
Hell's Kitchen has a few challenges which are always fun to watch including the taste challenge where they are blindfolded and have to guess the ingredient by taste alone. But mostly the challenges are pretty basic like how to prepare shrimps or who can make the most fresh spaghetti. Meanwhile Top Chef's challenges seem to be fairly different each week usually involving creating dishes with various ingredients pre-selected by the guest judge. My favourites include the challenge of creating something using ingredients from a petrol station and a vending machine!

Format
HK starts off with the men vs the women who have their own kitchen and have to cook for a dining room full of customers where as TC chefs in the most part cook for themselves (although team challenges seem to appear more as the seasons go on). HK is probably a more pressurised enviornment and with so many personalities and a foul mouthed, bad tempered head chef makes for some major drama!

Hosts/Judges
TC has Padma Lakshmi as the host of the show, she's not bad, very easy on the eyes and seems to know a fair bit about fine dining. However, someone needs to be fired for having Katie Lee Joel as the host in season 1, she was truly terrible. The main judge is Tom Collichio, personally I've never heard of him but he seems like quite a fair judge and definitely knows his stuff when it comes to cooking. Gail Simmons from Food & Wine Magazine is the other judge, she's kind of annoying but not too bad in small doses. On HK, obviously Gordon Ramsey is the master. Despite the fact that the show concentrates on portraying Gordon as an agressive loud mouth bully, he seems to pull it off without being disliked. In the UK version of HK, a more supportive and friendlier Gordon was on display, something I believe is closer to his real identity. Other bit part players include the sous chefs Scot and Gloria (who has since been replaced by Heather from Season 2) who have very little screen time and Jean Phillipe the Belgian Maitre d' who has become more and more of a comedy actor in recent years.

Verdict
Although HK is enjoyable, I personally believe it has started to become too formulaic. Every season we have a couple of hopeless cases, one guy who has to drop out for medical reasons and lots of shouting and swearing from Gordon. Top Chef, despite being a cooking show at heart has had some pretty major dramas to keep the viewers entertained. The challenges are more creative and tougher and the cheftestants have a lot more expertise when it comes to cooking.

Top Chef wins it!