Russian Dolls

Meet the Russians.

Anna is 22 and she’s an aspiring model, who will use her flirting skills to get what she wants. She has opened her modeling school but still lives in a tiny apartment with her parents and meddling grandmother.

Diana is 23 and wants to find the man she can marry. And, obviously, her husband needs to have a nice car and pay for everything.

Anastasia is 26 but is not interested in finishing college. She’s more interested in going to the gym, tanning, make-up, and making sure her hair extensions are all in place.

Eddie Zee is 26 and is the group’s good-looking lady charmer. He’s still trying to make his name in the world while he’s juggling the ladies and his social calendar.

Albert is 26, a wheeler-dealer who values money and social status. After all, there are only two things he wants: to make millions of dollars and bring home a nice Russian girl to his mom.

Marina is 34 and dripping in fur and diamonds and very much concerned with her status. She also runs the popular local club/restaurant, Rasputin, with her husband, Michael, in Brighton Beach, where she knows everyone.

Renata is 47 and hosts a popular Russian radio show. She is sweet, energetic and whimsical and always trying to make nice with her friends and her overbearing husband, Boris.

Sveta is 47 and has the upper hand in her 30-year marriage while her husband runs a jewelry store.

Russian Dolls premiered last Thursday, August 11 on Lifetime. The first season is currently showing on Thursdays, 1030/930c.

Did you guys watch the premiere? What do you guys think of Russian Dolls?

Gordon Ramsay’s F Word (BBC America)

Gordon Ramsay’s back with the fifth season of Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and the search for the Best Local Restaurant. Eighteen independent restaurants in the UK have been selected by Gordon Ramsay (pictured), journalist and foodie Janet Street-Porter and F Word maitre d’ Jean-Baptiste Requien. There are nine categories (Italian, Indian, French, Chinese, Thai, Spanish, The Americas, British and The Rest of the World) and two restaurants compete for each category. Each week, the restaurants try to impress the diners, who will decide if the dishes are up to par and whether they’ll actually pay for the meal.

Each week, Gordon searches for the best ingredients and adventure-filled food experiences that the restaurants will use for their challenges. And, during the competition, Janet raises the chicken, cows and pigs that the top two restaurants will be using for the finale.

The Restaurants

Italian

Prosecco from Bristol and Salvo from Leeds will be battling it out for the best local Italian restaurant. Gordon travels to Sicily to catch the live octopus they’ll be cooking for guest judge, former glamor model Katie Price.

Indian

Curry Corner from Cheltenham and Lasan from Birmingham will battle it out for best local Indian restaurant. Gordon travels to the Scottish Highlands to hunt for deer and will participate in a soup-to-soup challenge with comedy titan Lenny Henry.

French

The French Table from Surbiton and Bouchon Bistrot from Hexham are both hoping to be the best local French restaurant. Gordon travels to Paris and revisits French cooking and the dying art of the classic French pastry: croissants.

Chinese

Chop Chop from Edinburgh and Sweet Mandarin from Manchester battle it out for best local Chinese restaurant with salt and pepper squid, pork dumplings, claypot chicken and banana fritters. Gordon travels — not too far –  for mitten crabs to the river Thames.

Spanish

Two Spanish restaurants, El Gato Negro in Ripponden and Lola Rojo in South London, battle it out with prawns, sea bass, fish stew and churros with chocolate. Gordon travels to Spain for their delicacy, percebes (goose barnacles). Guest judge will be actress/model Kelly Brook.

The Americas

Carribean restaurant Discovery Bay from Huddersfield and Argentinian restaurant Santa Maria del Sur from London will battle it out with their chicken and chili, rib eye steak and spicy pork. Gordon heads to Quebec for wild snow goose and former pro soccer player Ian Wright joins him on this episode.

British

The Pheasant from Cambridgeshire and The Swan from Kent will try to impress with their stuffed rabbit, loin of venison and Christmas pudding. Gordon travels to Lapland, home of “Father Christmas”, for unusual meat, reindeer. English cricket hero Freddie Flintoff, burlesque superstar Dita Von Teese and singer/songwriter Peter Andre join Gordon in this episode.

The Rest of the World

Greek restaurant Retsina and Moroccan restaurant Doukan, both from London, compete in the Rest of the World category. Gordon will travel to UK’s only Haloumi cheese maker for this episode.

In the semi-finals, the top six restaurants will compete for the next three spots and then for the final two spots. In the Grand Final, the top two restaurants will battle it out and feed the harshest diners ever – food critics, as they compete for the title of F Word’s Best Local Restaurant.

Gordon Ramsay’s F Word, Tuesdays, 10p/9c, BBC America 

(U.S. Coast Guard photo)

The show isn’t perfect. There is occasional cheesiness and some problems are resolved just a little too easily. There are also moments of sheer brilliance. The emotional depth of the Episode 7 scene between Tom Mason and Captain Weaver (actors Noah Wyle and Will Patton) was the stuff that wins Emmys, or at least should.

There are mysteries and there are revelations, balanced nicely to keep viewers hooked but not exasperated. Recovering Mason’s son, in particular, played out at a nice pace. I expected the quest for Ben to be the series’ McGuffin for a season or more, but the resolution was quick and natural.

Falling Skies doesn’t pack the same emotional gut-punch as its thematic progenitor, The Walking Dead. It does, however, provide its share of thrills, action, dramatic tension, and intrigue. The writers have done a nice job getting us emotionally invested in the characters. They’ve also made it clear, by killing off secondary character Mike Thompson and harnessing pretty young Karen Nadler, that we shouldn’t feel too secure in their safety.

I have a short wish list for Season 2. I’d like to see more Lourdes. She’s a wonderful character struggling to find screen time amidst the large cast. Also, let’s see more of Tom and Anne as a couple.  I hope the kiss was just a hint of things to come.  I know they both recently lost their spouses, but in cases of world-wide alien domination I think the mourning period is abbreviated. My biggest wish for Season 2 is that it is longer than 8 episodes (22 maybe?) and that it comes around sooner than later.

The season finale left my cliff sufficiently hung.  With Tom off having his personal Close Encounter, summer 2012 seems a long way off.

Now, the boys are back and ready to get on with their lives. Vince agrees to check into rehab for ninety days instead of going to jail. Ari has agreed to a trial separation from his wife because his wife wants it. Eric and Sloan have called it quits. Turtle’s girlfriend, Alex, has gone MIA ever since she became the face of Avion, Turtle’s tequila company. The only good thing happening is Drama’s show. It’s funny and people love it!

But Vince is coming home and Drama’s determined to keep Vince clean and drug-free so he’s ordered Turtle (and Arnold) to scour every inch of the house, and the garage, apparently, for the presence of drugs, any kind of drug, and eliminate it. Drama’s not taking any chances and he’s even replaced all the liquor in the house with water and non-alcoholic liquid.

And then Vince comes home requesting a party, with girls, and drives Drama even more crazy. So he orders the boys to get sober girls and pretend to have a party like old times.

Entourage started out really hilarious in the first seasons. Then it became very serious and leaned more on drama and less on comedy. The season eight premiere is a clear example of that when it shows how Ari’s wife has started dating, Turtle hasn’t heard from his girlfriend since she started  her modeling career and Eric receives the engagement ring he gave Sloan on an envelope mailed to his house.

Entourage is no longer as good as the first seasons but the show has gotten its audience invested in the characters. And one of the reasons the audience is tuning in is to find out what’s going to happen to all of them –  Vince, E, Drama, Turtle, Ari and even Lloyd.

Did you catch the premiere? What are your thoughts?

Big Law: Deputy Butterbean (ID)

Boxing fans know Eric Esch as Butterbean in the 90s, fighting his opponents in the ring. Now, he’s fighting a different battle. Butterbean has been deputized by the Walker County Sheriff’s office and is ready to fight to keep his community safe.

Together with his best friend and partner, Adam Hadder, he is put to the test to answer the hundreds of calls the police stations receives every week. From domestic disputes to drug raids to crowd control and drunk driving patrol, Deputy Butterbean is always at hand as he goes through the needed training for joining the police force. Follow Deputy Butterbean and his partner, as they patrol their streets. Bad guys should be scared when he comes knocking at their doors but he’s a got big heart and he’s ready to help the bad guys get their lives back on track.

Big Law: Deputy Butterbean premieres on Tuesday, August 9, 10pm ET, on ID.

Big Sexy (TLC)

We’ve all seen the stick-thin models in the fashion industry in print ads, reality shows and fashion shows. But what about the other side of the fashion industry that represents the average woman in the US, the plus-sized models? Big Sexy brings you the plus-size world through the eyes of five fabulous women living it up in New York City. Leslie, Audrey, Tiffany, Nikki and Heather are on a mission to transform plus-size fashion to mainstream fashion. Join them in each episode as they design clothes, book modeling gigs and attend major industry events as they also balance it with their personal lives with their family and friends. “They are big, they are beautiful, and they are not sitting at home waiting for life to happen. They know better than anyone that real women can be sexy with curves — no matter what society says.”

Big Sexy premieres on Tuesday, August 30, 10pm EST on TLC.

Somehow – and by “somehow” I mean because I go out of my way to avoid CBS and the steady stream of bad sitcoms the network churns out – I missed out on six seasons of this very clever ensemble show despite high critical acclaim and five Emmy awards. Doogie Howser as a ladies’ man? No thanks. But thanks to the opportunity afforded me by a summer without suitably mindless entertainment I have discovered just how wrong I was.

The cast includes Josh Radnor as Ted (ostensibly main character), Alyson Hannigan (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame), Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, and Neil Patrick Harris. Harris is absolutely sublime as Barney Stinson. He’s obnoxious, self-absorbed, lecherous, and somehow delightfully charming. As if this cast wasn’t enough, the one and only Bob Saget provides the voice of future-Ted and the narration for the story.

With six seasons already done, there are plenty of episodes out there. And since it airs about six times a night on the various cable networks it’s easy to catch. If you’re even less aware of this show than I was, the basic premise is that Ted, in the year 2030, sits down his two teenage children to tell them the story of – wait for it – how he met their mother. Along the way, he rambles through the entire history of his gang of friends from the 2000’s. So far, he’s rumbled through 136 stories (at 22 minutes apiece, he’s had those kids on the couch for something like 50 hours). The closest he’s come to actually getting to the part about their mom was briefly dating her college roommate, although he’s never so much as glimpsed his future wife in any of the tales so far.

How I Met Your Mother has already been green lighted by the network for another two seasons. The next one starts on September 19th, which means we (I’m lumping you in with me in the “missed out on this great show up until now” group) have less than two months to catch up. Crank up the DVR.

Love in the Wild features 10 single men and 10 single women deep in the remote jungle of Costa Rica  to find “the one”. Men and women will pair up and participate in adventure-filled quests that will test their bodies and emotions. The winning couple wins an overnight stay at the Oasis, a luxurious five-star bungalow, completely equipped for a night of romance. All the other couples stay in less luxurious cabins, where they do all their socializing.

At elimination, they will reveal if they’ve made a lasting connection with their partner or if they’d like to switch with someone else. At the end of each episode, a couple is eliminated until there is only one last couple standing.

In the first episode, the ladies drew numbers to find out the order of selecting partners. When they’ve paired up, they’re given a backpack with all the gadgets they’ll need for their challenge. Their first challenge involves running to the river banks and building a usable raft, using the gadgets in their backpack. Once completed, they’ll use a map provided to them to collect symbols that represent earth, water and air in three different locations. The first couple to get all three symbols wins.

There were hits and misses. Some couples like Samantha and Mike were able to work together to build their raft. Some like Dawn and Jared got off to a slow start and bad connection, which forced them to go back to shore and rebuild their raft. Sam and Mike end up finishing first and winning the luxurious overnight stay at the Oasis. During the Couple’s Choice Ceremony, almost all of the couples switched partners, except for 3 couples, including Sam and Mike (the winners), Vanessa and Steele and Jared and Dawn, and eliminating Jared and Dawn.

Catch Love in the Wild Wednesday nights on NBC at 10/9c

Start with a script from AMC’s The Walking Dead, cross out ‘zombies,’ insert ‘aliens,’ and you’ve pretty much got Falling Skies. Dad struggles to take care of his son(s) while surviving in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies / aliens. Along the way he must deal with being thrust into a leadership position he never wanted, scavenging provisions from long-closed stores, and other bands of survivors who are not friendly toward our hero and his clan. But the show is so well done, and the wait for the second season of The Walking Dead is so long, that it doesn’t matter.

In fact, the show is so derivative of previous works that part of the charm is identifying which Sci-Fi convention it is exploiting. The walking toaster-style aliens? Moderately redesigned Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. The evil John Pope – played to creepy perfection by Colin Cunningham – finding his niche as the villain forced to work alongside our heroes against a common enemy? Pure Doctor Smith from Lost in Space. The mind controlled children as slave labor? Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Even individual scenes call to mind favorites from past films. For example, when Tom Mason returned to the military commander dragging the captive alien in a harness, Sci Fi aficionados everywhere went digging for their neglected DVD of Independence Day.

Noah Wyle is convincing as the history professor turned soldier in a war against the aliens. The character of Lourdes is a rarity in television: a person of deep faith who is portrayed as sincere, devout, and likeable. It doesn’t hurt any that actress Seychelle Gabriel is absolutely adorable, either.

The bottom line is that Falling Skies elevates derivation to a high art form as a pastiche of War of the Worlds mixed with The Walking Dead and a pinch of the best Science Fiction films of the past half-century. In a summer bereft of decent television, Falling Skies stands out as the show to talk about around the water cooler –for as long as the brief 8 episode season will take us.

• Darren Star is back with a new comedy called The Viagra Diaries, with Goldie Hawn who struggles with being single again when her husband of 35 years leaves her after a mid-life crisis.
• Aaron Sorkin also has a new drama show set to air on HBO. More As This Story Develops follows the lives of the people who work at a cable news channel. Cast includes Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Dev Patel, Alison Pill, Olivia Munn and Sam Waterston.

The Style Network

• Style Exposed premieres on July 9, featuring documentaries targeted for the female audience, including Baring It All, about breast cancer survivors in a photographic series, Born Male, Living Female and Single with 7.

Syfy

Syfy is gearing for six premieres, including two new shows, this summer on their network.

• Eureka is up for season 4.5 on July 11.
• Season 3 of Warehouse 13 follows right after.
• Haven returns for season 2 on July 15.
• Season 3 of Ghost Hunters International premieres on July 13.
• It’ll be quickly followed by a new show, Legend Quest.
• Another new show, Alphas, will premiere on July 11.

MTV

MTV will be premiering two new shows in late August.

• Rob Dyrdek is back with Ridiculousness, featuring hilarious amateur viral videos, premiering on August 29.
• Death Valley is the newest horror-comedy, documentary-style scripted series on MTV following the adventures of Undead Task Force (UTF), who has discovered that vampires, werewolves and zombies are living freely in Death Valley.

Discovery Channel

• Surviving the Cut season 2 follows a new batch of students as they undergo a grueling military Special Ops training and who will survive the cut. The show premieres July 11.
• Sons of Guns follows gunsmith Will Hayden and his team of experts for a second season, premiering on July 13.
• Fans of Jake Gyllenhaal will be delighted to know that he’ll be appearing in the first six new episodes of Man vs. Wild, premiering July 11.

Meet the teams:

California Girls

Christina, Brittany and Natalie are three college best friends from California. They’re not just beautiful and smart but they’re also talented athletes.

The Cops

Robert, Dani and James are all cops from Massachusetts. Their secret is in their trust in each other having worked together for many years.

The Country Boys

Nicholas, Jason and Chad are true Southern cowboys from Mississippi. They all stand over 6’3″ and plan on using their height advantage and survival skills to survive Morocco.

Fab 3

Ryan, Kari and AJ are partners and best friends, who believe their deadly combination of insanely good looks, killer smiles and innate athleticism will help go all the way.

The Fishermen

Gus, Nino and Joe are brothers and cousins and old-school Italian fishermen from Gloucester, MA. They work well together under pressure and their not-so-ordinary job has given them a toughness they’ll be able to use to win it all.

The Football Players

Akbar, Robert and Ricky are all former NFL players who met playing football for San Diego State University. They’re hyper-competitive and will do anything to win the competition.

Grandpa’s Warriors

Dick, Steven and Samantha span three family generations. Steven is Dick’s son and Samantha is Dick’s granddaughter. Together, they’ll use their competitive spirit, good looks, killer smiles and athleticism to win the race.

The Gypsies

John, Taylor and Eric are wacky and free-spirited gypsies. They’ve worked, live in, volunteered and traveled to over 40 countries. But they’re never done anything quite like this before!

Latin Persuasion

Dashia, Raven and Mai are friends and co-workers with Latina blood. They know how to liven any event and come with a “win at all costs” attitude, which they will use to their advantage.

Mom’s Army

Ellie, Ruthie and Abbie are a mom and daughters team. They may not be as physically strong as the other teams but they’re problem-solvers and that’s something to have when competing in this race.

New York Firemen

Kevin, Rob and Mike are firemen from New York. They call each other brothers and put their trust in each other. They’re competitive by nature and will gamble any risks to win.

No Limits

Eric, Jeff and Ike are all friends from Colorado. They’ve all been through good times and bad. They’ve climbed Mt. Everest, worked in the military and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re prepared for anything.

Team Kansas

Lindsey, Kelsey and Mackenzie are sisters from Kansas. They’re girly and sporty and they’re also cutthroat competitors, willing to give it their all to win.

Who do you think will make it to the end?