{"id":1281,"date":"2007-09-07T05:22:46","date_gmt":"2007-09-07T10:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1281"},"modified":"2007-09-06T11:23:43","modified_gmt":"2007-09-06T16:23:43","slug":"the-formula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1281","title":{"rendered":"The Formula"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I watch very little TV, I’ve become mildly interested in the endless, dare I say “cookiecutter”, bunch of Bravo “reality” shows – Project Runway, Top Chef, that hair salon show\u00a0whose name eludes me,\u00a0and the like – that involve taking a group of people in a very competitive, haute <\/em>kind of craft career and winnowing them down, a la Survivor, <\/em>to a championship over the course of a couple of months.<\/p>\n

The shows all have the same kind of formula; hosted by an otherworldly-hot woman (Heidi Klum, Padma Lakshmi) assisted by a lovable-in-an-irritating-a***ole-kind-of-way guy (Tim Gunn, Tom Colicchio), with a series of guest judges and tons and tons of product placement, yadda yadda.<\/p>\n

But the key part of the formula; the shows all focus toward the “Final Three” or the “Final Four”, on the last episode or two.\u00a0 And that final group, in all <\/em>of these Bravo “reality” shows, always <\/em>consists of:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The blazingly talented, usually gay, guy<\/li>\n
  2. The improbably hot, very talented woman<\/li>\n
  3. The highly-talented a***ole.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The prototype, of course, was Season 2 of Project Runway<\/em>: after a few weeks, it became obvious that egregious a***ole Santino was being carried along, prevailing over many better designers even though he frequently deserved to be tossed; he made such a compelling a***ole and the show’s story arc (if not actual clothing design) benefitted from the chaos and drama he provided.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    This week?\u00a0 It’s Top Chef<\/em>.\u00a0 I figured I’d try to get the formula figured out bright and early, but leave myself some wiggle room.<\/p>\n

    My predictions on week one:<\/p>\n

    Talented Guy: <\/strong>Tre<\/a> (backup:\u00a0 Brian<\/a>) (Sorry, guys – Dale, the loveable gay guy, is being kept around for a late-round sympathy toss)<\/p>\n

    Cute Talented Woman: <\/strong>Camille<\/a> (the way hot Puerto Rican chef) (backup: Casey<\/a>) (Although I rooted for Brooklyn’s Lia<\/a>, she was just too girl-next-door from the very beginning).\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Token \u00fcbertalented A***hole: <\/strong>Howie<\/a>, the New Yorker from Miami (backup: Hung<\/a>, the gratingly-arrogant but incredibly talented Vietnamese guy)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    \u00a0So – as of the Final Six, all of my first choices are gone – all of my backups are in the running.<\/p>\n

    Sort of like my system for betting horses, now that I think about it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    While I watch very little TV, I’ve become mildly interested in the endless, dare I say “cookiecutter”, bunch of Bravo “reality” shows – Project Runway, Top Chef, that hair salon show\u00a0whose name eludes me,\u00a0and the like – that involve taking a group of people in a very competitive, haute kind of craft career and winnowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","category-geekery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}