Scream Queens 2—The Finals (Week 8)

by XdarksparkX
Originally written: September 28, 2010
[Images courtesy of VH1.com]

Seven shitty actresses have fallen, the top three actresses remain… this week, all the proverbial marbles are on the line; it’s put up or shut up. In the end, one of the final three will in all likelihood become just another forgettable victim in the massive Saw body count. It’s Scream Queens 2—Week Eight: The Finals!

Week 8

• ELIMINATION CHALLENGE (SEMI-FINAL):
  
  Changing things up right out of the gate, as the first challenge is not a Skills Challenge, but rather a Director’s Challenge where the lowest performer will be eliminated on the spot. This is serious girls, one mess up and everything that you worked for will go down the toilet faster than Mr. Hanky. (I’m staring intently at you, Jessica. One flub and your power trip comes to a more disappointing end than the Philadelphia Flyers 2010 Stanley Cup Playoff run).
  
  Tim reveals that they will basically be copying the Semi-Final Challenge from Season 1. The challenge is named The Gauntlet, and it will entail a long chase scene that will be done in one continuous take. The only difference between this challenge and it’s predecessor from the first season is the location; instead of a dark, seedy apartment complex the chase will take place in a sun strewn park playground. THE HORROR OF DAYLIGHT SHALL OVERTAKE YOU! (They actually started filming after dark, so I'll stop knocking that).
  
  There are a lot of complex technical aspects (Hi Gabby), and transitions from “unsuspecting, to terrorized, to an ass-kicking heroine in the end.” (Man, Homa’s still kicking after eight weeks in hell). Blah blah blah…ugh, enough. You get it, it going to be hard and complicated. Let’s just skip the bullshit and get to the performances.
  
  Like the sun rising in the east, Jessica is once again up first. This challenge is particularly hilarious because we see all three judges react to the scene as they watch it as well. Jessica’s first mistake that they “calmly” pointed out? She didn’t get in the damn car fast enough after the stalker on the phone says “I’m the guy who’s watching you walk to your car”. Seriously, would you really be that nonchalant about that kind of comment in real life Jess? Gah. She corrects this in her second take, but I’m not actually believing her when the stalker pops out and grabs her from the back seat of her car. She’s much to reserved, infact she doesn’t even scream. Not to mention, she oversells her leg injury after tripping him up so much I thought she was auditioning to be a WWE wrestler. Your leg is not broken Jessica, stop dragging it around like you’ve got a lead weight in your shoe. Her third and final take she seemed to pull everything together, but what does it say when the powerhouse of the competition has problems with this scene?
  
  My dark horse Christine is up second, and her first take she makes almost the exact same mistake that Jessica made: hesitance to act on the urgency of the situation. Why do I have to say this twice? Someone is watching you from afar and knows your cell phone number, get your ass in the goddamn car, you dumb broad! She was also admittedly boring as hell in her setup while walking to her car. She completely turns it around in her second take after Tim’s direction, and she added a very realistic and subtle improvisation that made the setup ten times better. She then corrects what I thought Jessica failed at and completely panicked when the stalker grabs her, going as far to honk the horn out of reactive instinct. It was all going so well, and then Homa in his vast wisdom made the great point of “I don’t know what it is, but I’m just not pulling for [her character] to win.” Sadly, he was right. As good as her second take began, there was just something missing in the finale of Christine’s second take. It was almost too… light, I guess is the word I’ll use here. There was no power to her taking this guy out, it was all just… light. However, she does her finale much better on her final take, with a much better emphasis on the situation that has just occurred. It would seem the dark horse isn’t out of the race just yet.
  
  Then there’s Gabby. For someone who’s as technically inept as she is she didn’t do as bad as I thought. She was overly frightened during the beginning of her first take, and she was the only one of the three to actually outrun the camera but other than that her performance was solid during her third take. Very good showing from her given her previous track record with technical scenes.
  
  All three girls put out above average performances, but in the end only two could move on while one got the axe, and the person who tasted cold steel was…
  …
  …
  CHRISTINE. NOOOOOOO! Damn it! She was so damn close! (heavy sigh) Well, I hope this can open doors for her and that she can go far, because in my opinion she has more potential than any of the other girls. I saw it from day one, and I’m sticking to that belief even now as she walks away. Best of luck to you Christine Haeberman, I hope to see you acting again soon.
  
  
  ---
  
  

  So now it’s down to just two. Jessica and Gabby, a knockdown-drag out fight to see who will win it all and appear in Saw 3D. To the death—NO, to the pain!
  
  
  Before their final challenge, the girls are picked up via limo and driven to Lionsgate headquarters. Inside, they are greeted with a personalized greeting from Billy, Jigsaw’s iconic puppet (voiced terribly by some n00b stand-in who sounds nothing like Tobin Bell) welcoming them to the Final Challenge and congratulating them for getting this far. Video game voice replacement guy also tells them that their final challenge will be their take on the situation Lawrence Gordon found himself in in the original Saw film when he answers the phone and hears his wife and daughter on the other line begging him to help them, unaware that he is helplessly shackled to a pipe in an industrial bathroom.
  
  They return to the house after picking up their final challenge scripts for one last exercise with Johnny H.
  
  
• JOHN HOMA’S “GET OFF MY PORCH IF YOU’RE GONNA SUCK” ACTING EXERCISE:
  
  Homa starts the final meeting off like only he can. He asks the girls if they had a big meeting at Lionsgate, and both nod excitedly with grins lining their faces. “Yeah? Forget about it!” Bam, he takes them back to reality so fast they can do nothing but hang their heads in shame. “Focus on the task at hand! Take a look at each other, if you are not better than the person across from you, you are going home!” I will miss you and your epic rage Homa, if only you had your own show.
  
  So this exercise is different in that they will actually be doing the scene that is in the final challenge. In essence, this is their practice run. This is their only run where they can mess up without any negative repercussions (other than Homa raging at them of course). One of the girls will be the character they will play the next day, and the other will be the character’s sister who’s on the phone in the hands of Jigsaw. Jessica’s up first, and right away Homa shows that just because this is the last class, no one will skate thorough this unscathed. “The start of the scene, you wake up, you’re chained to a wall—you’re a prisoner. Where is that? All I’m getting is this [vacantly looks around without reacting to the scenes setting]. How long does it take you to realize you’re not where you should be?” He then tells them to switch it up, and Gabby is basically just as awful, you can just see the rage festering in Homa’s eyes as he watches her.
  
  They both didn’t fully commit to the scene for whatever reason, and Homa makes damn sure that they both understand this. “I need a series of realizations here. Your sister is on the phone saying ‘don’t let me die’ and you say you won’t. You made a promise to someone, you don’t know where they are and you’re chained to a wall!” He wants them to show him the desperation that comes with saving their own life in order to save their sisters, and he wants the full commitment to make him feel like the situation isn’t a damn high-school musical, but an actual life and death situation.
  
  Second tries, and Jessica’s performance feels like the biggest rip-off of Cary Elwes in the original Saw. All she’s missing is the goofy accent leak moments and it would’ve been straight from the movie. I’m not necessarily saying that’s bad, it’s just… interesting. Homa’s final task for them is that at the end of the scene, he needs the primal rage of a survivor, someone who is a victim no longer (ohh snap, and he comes full circle with everything back to the very first class! Homa, you sick genius, you).
  
  Gabby’s second try is up, and Homa calls her on ‘attempting to cry’. (boy, he’s just hitting every mark from everything he’s shown them, this is pretty damn epic). “Is the character trying to cry? No, the character is trying to solve a problem!” Then, Homa does what he does, he hits that emotional water valve and the tears come a flowing from Gabby like the Hoover freaking Dam just collapsed. From there, the transition to the final line of “I will kill you” becomes nothing but a formality, and Gabby delivers it with believable angst and power. Game, set and match, the mighty Homa’s work for Scream Queens 2 is complete.
  
  
• FINAL CHALLENGE:
  
  For the final Director’s Challenge, Tim states that his job was to merely prepare and coach them to work with any director. He reveals that for the final act they will have a guest director. The man who sat in the chair for Saw II, III and IV, the one and only Darren Lynn Bousman! Hell to the mother eff’n yes! Full Sail U alum in the hizzouse!
  
  Ahem, anyway, Jess is once again first out of the gate. She does exactly what she did in the Semi though, she does not look like she’s actually aware and present when it comes to her situation. Darren calls her on this, and gives her tons of notes for her second take. To her credit, she did exactly what he asked and was a more “proactive character” in her second take. Then, the call came in. “You’re not asking her if she’s at the mall buying clothes, you need to be urgent.” BWHAHAHAHA! Oh man, I had no clue Darren had that kind of snark in him! That was freaking brilliant. Jessica then stalks around, shouting that she’ll kill whoever is doing this, repeating “I’ll kill you” over and over like an annoying sound byte on a child’s toy. Darren once again calls her on it, and tells her not to pace back and forth but to actually try to find a way out. In the end, he thinks that she got where he wanted and he noted how well she takes direction.
  
  Gabby steps up to the plate, and in so many words whiffs on her first take. Darren didn’t even let her get 30 seconds into her scene before slicing it off. She was far too alert for his liking, especially for a character who was supposed to have been mildly drugged beforehand. Of course, after some direction it’s no problem, but her second take has no progression from sorrow to rage and she just kind of jumps from one to the other. Again, some direction rights that ship and she finishes strong and Gabby of all people finally fully commits herself to a scene and completely rages out in the finale. Nice.
  
  Like last year, this final is really up in the air. Either one of them could win, but there can be only one. Without further ado, the winner of Scream Queens 2 is…
  …
  …
  !!GABBY!! Wait, what? The fuck just happened here? How–when–who… how? Talk about upset of the year. Seriously, on consistency alone I probably would’ve gone with Jessica, but it is what it is. Jessica was right, it is really hard for Hispanics to break out in Hollywood. I think there was some judgmental bias possibly floating around, I mean they praised Gabby since the first challenge even though her performance was average. Never-the-less, congratulations to the underdog. It will be interesting to see how she fares in Saw 3D…
  

Final Rankings (links to each girl’s IMDb page embedded in their name)

1. Gabby (2-1-2; 4) .757
2. Jessica (3-1-0; 7) 1.200
3. Christine (0-1-2; 5) .571
4. Tai (1-2-2; 5) .785
5. Sierra (1-1-4; 2) .450
6. Sarah (0-1-2; 3) .425
7. Allison (0-1-2; 3) .425
8. Karlie (0-0-1; 2) .200
9. Rosanna (0-0-1; 1) .100
10. Lana (0-0-0; 0) .000
    

[KEY: Wins—Immunities/Runner Ups—Bottom Two’s; Total Times Safe (no ballroom appearance/not up for elimination if called. Called for bad performance while holding immunity results in no TTS)
Power Percentage:
Total number of wins {1.0 for win, 0.5 for immunity/runner up} divided by weeks, plus 0.TTS (I.E. +0.7 for Jessica; 0.5 for Christine; 0.4 for Gabby, etc.]

And thus ends another season of Scream Queens. Whether or not there will be a Scream Queens 3 now that the Saw franchise is coming to an end is unseen. All that I know is that if there is, you can be damn sure that I will be watching from opening night until the finale, and I will be sharing the acting failure induced lulz and epic HOMA RAGE moments until the inevitable end.

The 2010 VH1 Scream Queen -- Gabrielle West

...
...
... BEWARE THE SACRILEGE!

Scream Queens 2—Week 7

by XdarksparkX
Originally written: September 21, 2010
[Images courtesy of VH1.com]

Six shitty actresses have fallen, four suspect actresses remain… this week the girls get in touch with their inner Emily Rose as they get possessed by the spirit of Hannibal Lector (not really, but kinda). It’s Scream Queens 2—Week Seven!

WEEK 7:

• SKILLS CHALLENGE:
  
  This week, the girls will be possessed by a ghost in the Skills Challenge. The setup is that they’re attempting to contact a murdered woman via a séance, a woman who’s reputation staked her as the town tramp (lovely). The girls are to call on the spirit, have it enter their being, state its case and then exit their body. It’s a constant transitional performance basically.
  
  Jessica played it off as if the girls reputation was not unfounded, like this girl really was the village bicycle (everyone’s had a ride!) She was almost overly sensual, I think Tai said it best in the confessional: “Whoa, Jessica. This is a little ‘bow-chicka-bow-wow’” And Christine comes along and takes cues from that but toned down physically, however her dialog is so vulgar it would make a sailor take notice and say “…damn.”
  
  Tai was the one who actually thought “maybe this girl wasn’t the town slut, maybe some guy or girl just gave her that bad rep.” (Gasp! Deep story thinking and logistics are finally being used in this challenge!) She took this idea, and jacked it 425 feet into Ashburn Alley. Out of the park, walk off home-run. Her performance was simply outstanding. Is this a possible resurgence after her epic reality check last week?
  
  As for Tai’s antithesis Gabby, she seemed too focused on her choice to cough when the spirit entered and exited her that it kinda pulled me out of her performance. It was like she was being choked by the spirit when it entered her, and then trying to throw it up when it eventually left.
  
  Stand-Outs: Tai
  Face-Palms: N/A
  
  
• JOHN HOMA’S “GET OFF MY PORCH IF YOU’RE GONNA SUCK” ACTING EXERCISE:
  
  Doing only what the Great Homa can, John wants the girls to explore the state of inebriation. “As a Scream Queen, odds are that you’re going to have scenes where you’re drinking” …and then attempting to run away from a lumbering seven-foot machete-wielding psychopath, only to fall on your ass and not get the fuck back up. Ahem, sorry, that ticks me off every goddamn time I see it. Anyway, Homa wants the girls to play plastered, without actually being plastered (because that would just be cheating… and unprofessional on a set, but mainly cheating).
  
  After a few “drunken speech” tips, Homa sets up a scenario where at an office party, he is Christine’s boss and she has to drunkenly admit to being in love with him. At first, she flounders a bit, but she gets exactly what he wanted on her second try. He tells Tai to do the same, and the mood goes from lighthearted to HOMA RAGE in a matter of Tai overplaying her drunken state by crashing into an adjacent table. “KEEP THIS REAL, YOU!” You could just feel the anger-venom Homa spat out when he said this, “This is not a comedy, so why are you overplaying it!? I heard you were terrific with Jaime, so let’s go!” Damn, I don’t know if I can recall someone being on Homa’s shit list in back-to-back classes. Maybe I spoke too soon about her resurgence…
  
  Homa changes things up when Gabby steps up. This time, he’s supposed to be her boyfriend who’s always abused her, and thanks to a little alcoholic empowerment, she’s finally going to give him a piece of her mind. What Gabby seems to miss are two critical concepts, “drunk” and “empowerment” because she displayed neither.
  
  Jessica steps up and really nails down what Homa wanted, the back and forth between him and her felt very realistic, pretty much everything from her slurring of words to her off-balance stature was extremely believable. It’s a shame that after not being anywhere near the Bottom 2 for seven weeks, her head’s started to balloon so big I wonder if Falcon Heene is hiding in there.
  
  In a Shyamalan-ian twist, Gabby starts crying and says that she knows she could’ve done better when asked about it by Homa. He asks if he puts her back up there, will she give him better and she states a resounding “yes”, so he lets her try again. This straight up pisses in Jessica’s Trix cereal, because she swears that now that Gabby has seen her performance she knows what to hit in order to get what Homa wants. Jess starts to BAAWW about how “it’s not fair that certain people get second chances” She says that everyone else gets one shot and they have to bring it on that one shot, blah blah blah. By that logic Jess, second takes, reshoots and editing aren’t “fair” either. To be honest, this seems like her “I have to work harder because I’m Hispanic” demons are creeping up to the surface after watching a saltine cracker like Gabby get a second shot (not like you needed it Jessica, you were still kick ass). I think that she also knows that at this stage in the competition all it takes is one successful power play before she finds herself down a goal with a minute left to play.
  
  
  
  "Baaaawwwww!"
  
  
  Stand-Outs: Jessica, Gabby (second try)
  Face-Palms: Tai, Gabby (first try)
  
  
• DIRECTOR’S CHALLENGE:
  
  Somewhere in Baltimore State Hospital, Hannibal Lector is grinning ear-to-ear at the prospect of this weeks Director’s Challenge. The girls are to play a psychopathic murderer locked in a modern day asylum, revealing the details of their killing spree to their very own Clarice Starling. The Jodie Foster for the girls is Heath Freeman, who’s most notable stint according to his IMDb page was a 7 episode run on Raising The Bar. Hey, at least SQ is a job, right?
  
  Jessica, once again is out go-to setup girl. She tries on a Brooklyn accent for her character, and completely flubs her first take because she’s apparently more worried about how the accent is coming out than her lines and the actual performance. Tim gave her the opportunity to drop it after the first take, but she stuck with it and it was definitely for the better. She’s like a machine; she maybe take a bit to get booted up in the first take, but by the second take, she’s running as smooth as can be.
  
  Christine went a different route, playing a more innocent and less sexually charged insane. It came off extremely well… until the end where she was supposed to scare Heath and sounded more-or-less like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. Ugh, damn it Chris you were this close! Her BFF in the house Gabby meanwhile, manages to absolutely destroy all comers on her first take, which left me pleasantly surprised. This is the best I’ve seen Gabby in any Director’s Challenge. Way to save your best stuff for the last leg.
  
  And then there’s Tai. She was flat-out all over the place in her first take. Yes, the character is crazy but there has to be a transition, there has to be. Tim reiterates exactly this to her after her first take, saying that she’s making to many choices that are disjointed from one-another. Her answer to this? A f’n crotch shot. That’s right, Tai just flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something.
  
  
  
  “…and lets face it Sid, your mother is no Sharon Stone!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Stand-Outs: Gabby, Jessica
  Face-Palms: Tai, Christine
  
  
• THE AXE:
  All of the girls were called to the Grand Ballroom for the judgments that follow:
  
  Gabby was named Week 7’s Leading Lady, with Jessica's undefeated streak finally coming to an end as she settles for Runner-Up.
  
  Christine and Tai were this week’s Bottom 2 performers, and ultimately it was…
  …
  …
  Tai who got AXED. Round and round the house they went, as Tai tormented poor Gabby. The bitch, she thought it ‘twas all fun… POP! goes the ego.
  

Rankings after Week 7:

1. Jessica (3-1-0; 7) 1.200
2. Gabby (2-1-2; 4) .757 [previously 4th]
3. Christine (0-1-2; 5) .571
   
   
4. Tai (1-2-2; 5) .785
5. Sierra (1-1-4; 2) .450
6. Sarah (0-1-2; 3) .425
7. Allison (0-1-2; 3) .425
8. Karlie (0-0-1; 2) .200
9. Rosanna (0-0-1; 1) .100
10. Lana (0-0-0; 0) .000

[KEY: Wins—Immunities/Runner Ups—Bottom Two’s; Total Times Safe (no ballroom appearance/not up for elimination if called. Called for bad performance while holding immunity results in no TTS)
Power Percentage:
Total number of wins {1.0 for win, 0.5 for immunity/runner up} divided by weeks, plus 0.TTS (I.E. +0.7 for Jessica; 0.5 for Christine; 0.4 for Gabby]

Gabby finally comes to play and leapfrogs two spaces, though with the final week looming that pretty much means nothing. Though I must say, it is interesting that up until Tai, the Power Averages were right on par with the eliminations, and Tai’s elimination could be chalked up to necessity rather than overall performance within the competition. Not bad for an algorithm that took me all of 5 minutes to think up. So, the Final Three are set, and at the end of next week, one of them will be apart of one of the most abused dead-horses in the business. Everything they’ve been working for; all the uncooperative cauldrons, all the bricks thrown at their heads, all the maggots inadvertently swallowed, it was all to culminate to this. Next week, it’s Scream Queens 2—The Finals!

Scream Queens 2—Week 6

by XdarksparkX
Originally written: September 14, 2010
[Images courtesy of VH1.com]

Five shitty actresses have fallen, five suspect actresses remain… this week, the girls get a dose of handheld camera syndrome, as they more-or-less reenact scenes from Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity. It’s Scream Queens 2—Week Six!

WEEK 6:

• SKILLS CHALLENGE:
  
  Back into the maw, we get a crudely rendered pre-visualization during the explanation of this weeks Skills Challenge. The reason for the pre-vis? Because for this Challenge, the girl’s co-star will be a big-ass green tarp. Yup, they’re doing a greenscreen’d monster scene this week.
  
  The scene setup is that their characters will be in the penthouse of a skyscraper, admiring a low flying plane (umm…bad taste? Maybe I just think that because the 8th anniversary of 9/11 just passed and the nationwide depression about it was just running rampant all over the educational channels) and looking at the people waaayyy down below. Suddenly, a giant T-Rex (aka The Cloverfield Monster / Mothera / Mecha-Streisand / whatever the hell they imagine) pops up out of nowhere and scares the living bejeesus out of them. Jaime makes sure the girls know that she wants this performance to be believable and real, because a giant-monster only making “boom” rumbling noises while romping around a populated cityscape without any sort of prior panic or destruction reaching the eyes or ears of the girl’s characters is a completely legitimate setup. Just saying, you want a performance to feel real, probably a better idea to give them a more ominous and logistical buildup.
  
  As far as the performances, well, Christine started out well enough, but after her initial reaction to the monster she just went into this weird wheezing fit. It was almost as if in her head the scene was done, but no one in reality is calling cut. Damn it Chris, why can you not get to the place where you’re as good as I know you can be? Jessica once again kicked ass, insert usual praise here. Gabby also surprisingly wasn’t bad, her set-up left something to be desired but her reaction to seeing Mecha-Streisand was dead on the button.
  
  You know, Tai was on a very thin line after last week. One of two things would happen this week, either she would repeat her performance in an attempt to pry the #1 spot away from Jessica, or she would fail epically after thinking that she is leading lady material without having to try. After watching her Skills Challenge performance, I’d have to say she’s starting to drift towards the latter. I think I’ll let Jessica’s reaction when watching her performance speak for itself.
  
  
  
  
  
  Sierra is trying to get in touch with her inner onion and show her “layers”. Yet, she still spits out a performance not vastly dissimilar to her previous ones, and still does her weird trademark “constantly cover your mouth” scream. Basically, she went from passable to crap in 6 seconds flat.
  
  Stand-Outs: Jessica, Gabby
  Face-Palms: Sierra, Tai
  
  
• JOHN HOMA’S “GET OFF MY PORCH IF YOU’RE GONNA SUCK” ACTING EXERCISE:
  
  The girl’s walk into Homa’s acting exercise for the week and he’s already pissed off. He’s staring daggers into each and every one of them, and has a pile of bricks by his side. This cannot end well.
  
  
  
  Ohhh shiiiiittt...
  
  
  He states that ever since the last elimination, he wakes up pissed off. He thinks of how stupid and easy it is to get knocked out of this competition, and how the girls are shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. He singles Christine out in particular, and then the HOMA RAGE really starts a-building when he says that he’s sick of seeing Sierra in the damn elimination room, so sick that he wants to vomit (lovely visual there, Homa). The HOMA RAGE then hits maximum capacity: “So when I came in today and saw this pile of bricks, the first thing he wanted to do was take one of these bricks and—” The RAGE overtakes him and he proceeds to HURL THE BRICK AT THE GIRLS. At the end of The Big Bad Wolf Massacre, there were six bricks thrown, and no survivors. The man they called Homa, has not been seen since. The case today, remains open…
  
  Okay, seriously, it’s revealed when the girls rightfully flip the fuck out and dive for cover that they notice the brick bounce around. Now that everyone has shit their pants, Homa reveals that it’s an obvious prop. Yeah, obvious now. He has emotionally scarred each and every one of these girls for life, they will have recurring nightmares every time they turn in a poor performance of Homa straight up hurling bricks at their heads with the intent to crack their skulls like a Faberge egg.
  
  Anyway, this week Homa’s lesson is about working with props. He reveals a various assortment of props such as shovels, pipes and fire axes, along with their real-life counterparts. He wants them to get a feel for the weight of the real one before picking up the much lighter prop version, so as to get a feel for how the prop could be realistically handled.
  
  Everyone did fine in this, and then Tai came up. I don’t know what she was thinking, but it wasn’t about a performance this week Tai, it was about believably handling a prop weapon. She gets up there with a fire axe and starts wailing away at the floor, completely forgetting about selling the weight property of the axe because it’s bouncing off the floor like a damn super-ball.
  
  Homa then paired them off and had them take turns hitting each other in the back with the various weapons and make the impact look believable. Gabby seemed to have the same problem as Tai during this, as she was too focused on “sneaking up behind” Jessica and “making faces” as Homa put it instead of just creeping up and wailing Jess in the back. Basically everyone except Jessica and Sierra had trouble overselling the weight of the object in question. However, they at least gave Homa what they wanted after he gave them notes, which is more than what could be said for Tai.
  
  If there was any doubt that Tai was falling into the trap of lackadaisical performances, it was burned with her epic failure when she went up with the purpose of hitting Christine in the back with a pipe. Homa didn’t pull punches after her first swing “Okay, the acting’s sucking because we’re worried too much about the hit.” So she tries again, and again makes a weird face which causes Homa to stop the scene mid-way through. She then tries again, and when she hits Christine, Chris doesn’t really carry the momentum realistically, which makes Tai completely quit on the scene and stand there with a “0_o” look on her face, completely forgetting that she has a lead pipe in her hands. It’s only when Homa says “TAI! C’mon!” that she realizes that she’s stopped selling the pipe and tries to correct it. Facepalm material at its finest, it seems that the “wonderful” Tai just got wrecked by the reality check train.
  
  Stand-Outs: N/A
  Face-Palms: Tai
  
  
• DIRECTOR’S CHALLENGE:
  
  Paranormal Activity ain’t got nothing on this weeks Director’s Challenge! No, but seriously, this weeks DC has the girls dealing with a vengeful spirit. The setup is that the girls are painting a piece of furniture in the attic of their new home. As they’re painting, the paint can is yanked from their hand by an unknown force, before an otherworldly struggle ensues. This is to climax in the finale, where the girls are flung across the attic by the entity via Matrix inspired wire-work. The main thing in this that the girls probably don’t realize is they’re technically crafting two performances, their own and the demon entity that’s attacking them.
  
  I think they keep putting Jessica first because they know that she will set a great bar for the rest of the girls. While she didn’t disappoint, I felt as though her entity didn’t have an intent with its movements. It just seemed all over the place, which made it hard to get a feel for where it was.
  
  Christine. You know, she’s been my dark horse in this competition for a reason. I know that there are strokes of brilliance in her performances, but they can never get culled together to form a masterpiece. Well, after distancing herself from the other girls when they received their scripts the night before and mapping out her performance, I can finally say that Christine has fulfilled the potential I knew she always had. She was absolutely fantastic, it was easily the best performance in a Directors Challenge—strike that, it was one of the best performances I’ve seen period. She chose to have her ghost attempt to drag her in one direction, and the body control she exhibited made this intent and movement believable without a shadow of a doubt. The thing about Chris’s performance that really made it stand out to me is that she—either purposefully or unknowingly—gave her ghost an intent. Near the end of the scene, she had it “drag” her in the same direction she flies off in, almost as if it wanted to get her over there for some reason. This in turn gives the viewer a much more vivid idea as to where the specter actually is in relation to the victim character. It was something so subtle, but yet so perfect and so ingenious.
  
  It became obvious that no one would top that performance, but the two performances that followed it weren’t even “passable”. Sierra comically flopped around like she was either a fish on a boat deck, or being attacked by the evil tickle monster. I shall let the sound guy’s expression say the rest for me.
  
  
  
  
  
  Tai meanwhile, went three-for-three in epic failures. There was no intent, just a bunch of falling down and screaming, followed by a comical “kung-fu” pose as she flew through the sky. Well, at least the Wachowski Brothers would be proud.
  
  Stand-Outs: Christine
  Face-Palms: Tai, Sierra
  
  
• THE AXE:
  Those called to the Grand Ballroom for judgment were as follows:
  
  Jessica was named Week 6’s Leading Lady, with Christine finally snatching the Runner-Up spot.
  
  Sierra and Tai were this week’s Bottom 2 performers, and ultimately it was (in a split decision for the first time)…
  …
  …
  Sierra who got AXED. I actually have nothing snarky to say this week. Looking back, she completely blew my expectations away from what I expected from her after her first performances. For that, I have to commend her. It proved to me that she has the drive to improve herself, and understand her weaknesses. Not to mention, as the youngest actress in this competition at 22, I think she could actually become a formidable actress some day if she keeps up the drive to better herself that she gained here. I honestly wish her all the best.
  
  

Rankings after Week 6:

1. Jessica (3-0-0; 6) 1.100
2. Tai (1-2-1; 5) .833
3. Christine (0-2-1; 5) .667 [previously 4th]
4. Gabby (1-1-2; 3) .550
   
   
5. Sierra (1-1-3; 2) .450
6. Sarah (0-1-1; 3) .425
7. Allison (0-1-1; 3) .425
8. Karlie (0-0-1; 2) .200
9. Rosanna (0-0-1; 1) .100
10. Lana (0-0-0; 0) .000

[KEY: Wins—Immunities/Runner Ups—Bottom Two’s; Total Times Safe (no ballroom appearance/not up for elimination if called. Called for bad performance while holding immunity results in no TTS)
Power Average:
Total number of wins {1.0 for win, 0.5 for immunity/runner up} divided by weeks, plus 0.TTS (I.E. +0.6 for Jessica; 0.5 for Tai, Christine; 0.3 for Gabby]

Gabby finally falls to her rightful place as Christine leapfrogs her thanks to her epic performance in the Director’s Challenge. Jessica meanwhile has actually managed to eclipse 1.000, because she’s apparently just that freakishly good. To be honest, I’m surprised that my RSAs (Random Statistical Algorithms) actually reflect the happenings on the show rather accurately. Shame that we’re getting to the point where they will eventually be useless. Oh RSAs, we hardly knew ye.

Stark Ranting Mad: Beast Legends

by XdarksparkX
Originally Written: September 11, 2010

What happens when you take Deadliest Warrior’s bullshit pseudo-science and mix it with the cryptozoology half of Destination Truth? Apparently a shit storm broadcasted on SyFy by the name of “Beast Legends.”

The only reason I gave this show a try was because Destination Truth moved to a new night and I happened to habitually record two hours due to Ghost Hunters being DT’s old lead in. However, in hindsight I should’ve suspected something was up when I noticed that the promos for Beast Legends were extremely vague when it came to actually describing what the show is about.

So what is the show about, you ask? It was the first question that naturally kept ricocheting in my brain as I watched the opening credits. Apparently an art geek, computer nerd, and three so called “experts” get together, do “research” on animals similar to the legendary beast of the week, and “build” a computer rendering and mini movie with the creature they have “created”. THAT’S IT. Think of it as Build-A-Bear with mythical creatures, because that’s pretty much all they do. They take the “best” or “coolest” features of real-life animals and slap them together to create a pseudo-realistic Frankensteined version of the creature in question.

Now, what’s interesting is that some of these people have legitimate credentials (the black guy, Scott Edwards, is a f’n Professor of Organic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard for crying out loud), which makes me wonder how in the blue hell they couldn’t see that this show is obviously just an overly anal-retentive way to make a damn movie-monster. I mean, lets face it, none of the creatures exist, so why the hell are we arguing about whether or not we can put “protective scales” on the Kraken—IT DOESN’T EXIST. Even if I’m wrong and it does exist somewhere, would the first thing you notice be that a 200-foot long Octopi-Squid hybrid has are scales!? The worst part about this, is that the “experts” are constantly like “let’s keep this grounded in reality.” HEY, DUMBASS! A 200 foot cephalopod isn’t grounded in reality to begin with, that’s why it’s a mythical fucking creature! That’s like saying “Star Wars shouldn’t have explosions in space, there’s no oxygen in our space” even though the films clearly state the story takes place “in a galaxy far, far away”!

As if the show wasn’t facepalm worthy enough, some genius decided that during certain parts of the footage when they’re out gathering their research they should put an animated CGI render of the creature in question off in the background. I’m sorry, is this supposed to suspend our disbelief? Are we supposed to buy that the poorly rendered tentacles off in the distance is actually the “real” Kraken? What they were going for here doesn’t make sense, because the render is so unbelievably bad no one in there right mind would think it’s real. It’s even worse when they have it off in the distance and make a loud splash, only for one of the team members to turn and look off in that direction. Ugghhh, you have got to be shitting me.

Know what, that’s not even the worst part of the show. No, the worst part is that when they find out that the Colossal Squid actually has little pivoting hooks on its tentacles in addition to the Giant Squid’s serrated suckers. Not content with just adding them on, the “concept artist” and Indiana Jones wannabe have to actually make these hooks to the scale they would be on their Kraken. So they head—where else—to a Hollywood prop shop to make these hooks. After time lapsed construction they finish them and decide to test them out. They use a barrel to simulate a ship’s hull, and start bashing the hell out of it. Needless to say, their craftsmanship blows harder than a Sperm Whale, and they barely manage to so much as chip the barrel. They then try to justify their shitty workmanship by saying that the hooks wouldn’t be enough to pierce the ship’s hull, but the Kraken would use them to latch on and let it’s sheer weight bring the boat down. Or guys, maybe you built the spikes to goddamn wide, with too much of a dramatic grade in the curvature, hence why it can barely scratch a goddamn barrel.

In it’s grand finale, these guys—for some unbelievably stupid reason—scout a location for where their Kraken could live. How many times do I have to say this, it’s not real! Why the hell do you need a location if you’re just going to make some 5 minute cinematic? You render the water, you put a boat model in it, Kraken owns said boat, the end. Where does the location have any significance what so ever? It’s like they knew they had to find a way to burn more money. Absolutely ridiculous.

Know what’s funny? I don’t even think the people involved in this show know what its supposed to be. The comic book/concept artist kept pushing for the damn “armor scales”, while we’ve got everyone else saying “stick to reality man!” It’s like the show itself is confused. All they do is build mythical creatures, so is it a conceptual art show? Yet, they actually study real-life animals behaviors and physiology, so is it a science show? Wait, they are technically doing all of this in the name of a creature that doesn’t exist, so is it a cryptozoology show? The CGI mixed in with the reality footage is unbelievably goofy, so is this a behind-the-scene’s look at the new SyFy Original Shitfest’s that are scheduled to come out? You know what, I think the answer to this mystery is one I’m content with leaving unsolved.