The Amazing Race: Season premiere (spoiler alert)

The premiere of The Amazing Race went unremarked here on the blog, partly because of vacation and partly because everyone's so darn busy, but my correspondent Astrid Lange is back. Here's her first post.

Apologies for the lateness of this recap. I returned from vacation on Wednesday and just got a chance to sit down and watch Sunday's episode. 

The 20th season of The Amazing Race kicked off on Sunday, Feb. 19 with another pair of reality stars heading up the cast. Following in the footsteps of Survivor's Ethan and Jenna, Big Brother's Jeff and Jordan, and Survivor's Boston Rob and Amber, Big Brother 13 winner Rachel Reilly and her fiance and fellow BB contestant Brendon Villegas are the latest pair of reality show couples to compete in the Race.

Rachel and Brendon are competing against 10 other colourful teams, including married clowns Dave and Cherie, federal agents Nary and Jamie, border patrol agents Art and JJ, a set of good-looking twins, Elliot and Andrew ,and good ol' Kentucky "boys" Bopper and Mark (the oldest contestant this season at 45), whose accents are so thick, I think they may require subtitles.  But their country "charm" makes me laugh, referring to cousins Kerry and Stacy as the girls from Mississippi with the badonkadonks!  Yes, charming. And could they be any louder? 

Teams began in Santa Barbara, California, by running through a vineyard and searching 100 mini hot-air balloons for one of 11 clues telling them that their first destination was Santa Barbara, Argentina.

Two planes of teams, two hours apart, headed to Salta, Argentina (the closest airport to Santa Barbara) by way of Buenos Aires.  The first plane carried the twins, Brendon and Rachel (a.k.a. Brenchel), Nary and Jamie, Art and JJ, Iraq war vet Dave and his wife Rachel, and dating divorcees Vanessa and Ralph. The second plane carried, well, everyone else!

Once in Salta, teams made their way to Aeropuerto de Cafayate where their first Road Block required one team member to skydive from 10,000 feet (in tandem with someone who knows what they're doing!) while the other located them using a map.  We saw an early alliance (or an "inter-agency co-ordination" between the U.S. Army and Border Patrol) form between Dave and Art as they helped each other with the map-reading.  Maybe they should bring along federal agents Nary and Jamie too?  But maybe not Brendon, who as someone half-Mexican, has already voiced his dislike of border patrol agents.

Despite some predictable stumbling blocks of fear of heights (JJ, country girl Stacy) and stick-shift issues (Jersey Boy/Guido Danny), teams fared well in the skydiving challenge.  On the way to locate her sister Misa, Maiya took a wrong turn and got her Ford vehicle (product placement!) stuck in the soft sand but received help from a passerby who towed her out.

On to Patios de Cafayate, teams had to make 120 empanadas (60 meat, 60 cheese) and pay close attention to the different dough crimping patterns for each kind.  Art and JJ were not adept at this task, having to constantly re-crimp the dough after the "empanada Nazi" judging their work told them their empanadas did not look right.

Dave and Rachel performed the task with speed and accuracy and finished moments before Brenchel. In so doing, they arrived at the mat first, winning not only the first leg of the Race, but also the Express Pass, which allows them to skip a task of their choosing on a future leg.

Brendon and Rachel were followed by Art and JJ, Nary and Jamie, Vanessa and Ralph, Elliot and Andrew, Kerry and Stacy, the married clowns (who brought rolling luggage?) and Mark and Bopper.

Misa and Maiya finished making their empanadas a few minutes before the Guidos Joey "Fitness" and Danny, but had to run back to the car to get their bags.  They wasted time running around the property aimlessly looking for Phil and the Pit Stop.  Phil even saw them at one point and wondered where they were going.  This delay allowed the Jersey Boys to sneak in and beat them to the mat.

The sisters were eliminated from the Race and, to add insult to injury, Phil pointed out that never before on the Race, in a fight to avoid last place, had a team been so close to the mat, yet been overtaken at the finish.  Wah-wah.  Thanks for pointing that out Phil, I'm sure the girls really appreciate it!

And so it begins. This season, the teams will travel across five continents and 22 cities, visiting Paraguay and Azerbaijan for the first time in the history of the Race. Challenges include training with Masai warriors in Tanzania and a visit to the German castle that was the inspiration for the castle in Sleeping Beauty.

Stay tuned for semi-regular episode recaps.  Semi-regular as I'm doing a bit of Amazing Race travelling myself in the upcoming months!

Until next week Race fans!

(The photo of Brenchel is by Robert Voets for CBS.)

American Idol: Part 1 of the top 24 (spoiler alert)

(Jen Hirsh performs in Las Vegas in a Fox photo by Michael Becker.)

I guess you've got to give Nigel Lythgoe and his American Idol team credit for being canny: why give us the milk when they can tease us into buying the cow?

I actually thought I'd missed a show when I heard Ryan Seacrest intone “tonight, one final performance” at the beginning of Wednesday's episode and then we saw contestants in the holding room waiting to learn if they 'd made the top 24.

Wait a minute: where were the performances?

Well, they weren't, unless you count the snippets we saw as contestants waited to hear their fates.

All the better to make us tune into next week's live shows and see entire songs, I guess.

One more quibble and I'll move on to the positive.

Why oh why can't we dispense with the gotcha style of delivering the news, in which the judges mislead successful contestants by using words that lead them to believe they're being let go.

It's not fooling the viewers; we can all see the yeses coming from miles away, so why torture the poor kids?

Steven Tyler at least seemed uncomfortable with the charade. "Did you have to string it out so long?" he asked Randy Jackson after Randy brought Jen Hirsh to the verge of tears waiting for her result.

On the bright side, Jennifer Lopez didn't cry this season, so there's that.

Now for the good news. There are some terrific picks among the 14 singers we've seen selected so far for the top 24. Those include Jen Hirsh, Joshua Ledet, Elise Testone, Reed Grimm, Erika Van Pelt, Heejun Han and Phil Phillips.

(Heejun as usual had the best lines of the show. "If this is a no today then I'll immediately hug Jennifer Lopez and kiss her. That's every Asian man's dream right there," he said. And when Ryan Seacrest asked him, "What are you sweating?" Heejun replied, "Mostly water." If great singing and great lines aren't enough, we learned that Heejun works with special needs kids.)

Also making the cut were Creighton Fraker, Haley Johnsen, Baylie Brown, Jessica Sanchez and Colton Dixon. I've been lukewarm on him, but I liked what I heard of his final performance of Coldplay's "Fix You."

But Brielle Von Hugel, seriously? Her final performance, of "Killing Me Softly," seemed mannered and calculated. She also seems arrogant and her mother is ridiculously annoying.

I'm scratching my head over how the judges could choose Brielle over Lauren Gray, whose "smoky tone," as Ryan put it, I adore. Lauren was sent packing with an urging to audition again next year.

"No, I'll never come back," she said. "I gave it a shot just so I could know for sure, but maybe it will happen some other way." (Voice producers, are you listening?)

I'm also not particularly moved by country singer Chelsea Sorrell.

The episode ended with apparent favouite Adam Brock in the hot seat. Adam was already in tears before anyone had hinted at his result.

"Is this your dream? Is this what you really want?" Randy asked him.

"I have to sing. It's where my joy comes from, it's how I know that God blessed me," Adam said.

Then the psych-outs began. 

"We believed in you. If we didn't, you wouldn't have got this far, but we didn't think when you were singing you believed in you," Steven said.

"It's hard to say goodbye at this point in the game," said JLo.

"Our decision for you definitely is not unanimous. It is what it is. This is the moment, the moment of truth," added Randy.

And that's where things ended. My guess is there'll be a yes for Adam on Thursday's episode.

Tune in at 8 p.m. on CTV Two and look for the recap here.

Survivor: One World - Blame it on the boobs (spoiler alert)

(Christina, Monica and Kim on Survivor: One World in a CBS photo by Monty Brinton.)

There is no battle of the sexes happening on Survivor: One World; it's just a massacre.

The men are wiping the jungle with the women and there's no end in sight, not when the ladies are more intent on keeping alliances than using their brains as well as their brawn to win challenges.

As a stern Jeff Probst warned the Salani team at the end of their second tribal council in a row, "We're only five days in, but you're two tribe members down and you've yet to win a challenge. You've got to get it together."

Ya think?

My first thought when I saw Wednesday's immunity challenge was that it had been chosen specifically to give the women an advantage. You'd figure the ladies would find squeezing past each other on a narrow balance beam easier than the bulkier men.

But you'd figure wrong. The men quickly hit on a method and got their players across. There were a few boo-boos that necessitated jumping into the water and starting again, but that hardly mattered since the women were so hopelessly behind. By the time the men won, only one woman had made it across the beam.

Laughably, some of them tried to blame their defeat on their anatomy. "It's definitely the boobs are hard," said Chelsea. 

While it seems like female castaways get more pneumatic with every season, ex-cop Nina hit on the real answer: "It's just the way it's been going for us these last five days, no communication, no teamwork, same old story."

Oh well, they sort of communicate if you count those tribal meetings that appointed leader Sabrina keeps calling, which don't seem to accomplish anything useful.

At least, Sabrina has a colourful way of expressing herself. "We need a tarp like a fat kid needs cake," she said, after the women lost the DIY reward challenge (boxes containing thick bundles of rope were delivered to camp, which had to be hauled out and untied with the tarp as the prize).

To be honest, I don't even much care if this group keeps losing. Who is there to root for on Salani, besides maybe Kim and Chelsea? Monica seems too earnest, Kat too immature and Alicia too much of a word that rhymes with witch.

Christina seemed like a decent sort, but then she voted to oust Nina, who was supposedly in Christina's alliance with Monica and the departed Kourtney (although to be fair, Monica also turned on Christina).

Christina's days are numbered anyway. Alicia pretended to make up with her after their argument at last week's tribal council but then confided to the camera, "Please, if i saw her swimming in an ocean and she was drowning I'd probably look the other way."

We could talk about the men's Manono tribe, but there's not much going on there, unless you count Tarzan (a.k.a. Greg) dancing around the campfire in a Speedo as if he'd watched one too many LMFAO videos. Shudder.

There was at least bit of intrigue involving Colton. After the women told him he couldn't come play at their camp anymore, despite his tears, he confided to the "misfits" on the men's tribe (Jonas, Troy, Leif, Tarzan) that he had an immunity idol, given to him by Sabrina last episode.

The plan is for Colton to play the idol at the men's first tribal council and then the misfits will vote off "the muscle," as Troy calls Matt, Mike, Jay and Bill.

Of course, that assumes the men get to a tribal council, which is far from a sure thing.

At their own tribal, the women jettisoned Nina's life experience and physical ability to keep ditzy Kat around, the youngest tribe member at 22.

Among the encouraging things the women learned about Kat at tribal: she feels her contribution to the tribe is "I'm outdoors and I do sales and I work with people all the time" (as a timeshare representative); and she never fails because "I usually don't try anything unless I know I'm gonna succeed."

Sure, I'd keep that over 13 years experience on the LAPD, wouldn't you?

Kim, who seems to be calling some of the shots on Salani, reasoned that it was more important for the other women in her alliance to trust her than to punish Kat for her total ineptitude in the immunity challenge (not only was she unable to squeeze past more than one person on the balance beam, she kept jumping into the water when she didn't have to, slowing everybody else down).

That alliance could be a moot point soon, anyway, if the men keep winning, which they seem poised to do.

The promo for next week's episode showed the women shivering in the rain with no fire and the men refusing to give them an ember to get one going. That's hardly conducive to winning challenges, especially if the women remain divided and unable to work together effectively.

All will be revealed. Tune in next Wednesday at 8 p.m. on Global and look for the recap here.

And tell me, what do you think of this season so far. You can comment here, tweet me @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.  

(The photo of Nina is by Monty Brinton for CBS.)

 

Kourtney Moon: Survivor exit interview

Kourtney Moon had one of the more memorable exits from Survivor.

The member of the all-women's Salani tribe broke her wrist during the first immunity challenge as seen on last week's Survivor: One World premiere. 

"It’s in one piece. It’s still scrawny, just the way it was before the break," the 29-year-old said when I asked how the wrist is now. 

Although Jeff Probst had told the other castaways that Kourtney's break required surgery, doctors didn't operate; they forced the broken bones back into place instead, a process they had to repeat twice before it worked. "I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy," she said.

She recalled how she knew the wrist was broken when she got to the bottom of the net in a challenge that involved castaways jumping into a net from a platform and then crossing a balance beam.

"My hand was kind of dangling," she said. 

The hard part, she added, was watching it on TV. "I didn't want to see it happen."

But the break has had other lasting effects.

Kourtney, who lives in Austin, Texas, is still undergoing rehabilitation and has been told her wrist will never be 100 per cent. That means she can't pursue her previous career as a motorcycle repair person.

"It's a tough pill to swallow. It did directly affect my livelihood," she said.

Despite that, she feels her brief time on Survivor was a positive experience.

"I kind of see it as a blessing. I met some amazing people and made some lifelong friends. I got to go to the South Pacific, I got to do some wonderful things and how can that be terrible?"

And the injury leaves her open for "an opportunity that may be more fruitful and appealing and longer lasting than being a mechanic.... There are plenty of people that have it much worse than I do. There's no room for self-pity."

Kourtney said the three days she spent with her tribe were fun but chaotic at first.

"There was no order and then throw the crazy social dynamic of that into the mix.

"Sabrina went off and was looking for the idol for three days straight and didn’t really do much. The guys were coming over all the time. Girls were coming over all the time."

Although the all-male Manono tribe seemed tough on its female counterparts on last week's show, Kourtney said, "There was a lot of flirting going on. I didn’t see a lot of the conflict. Most of the conflict I saw was more just like teasing each other.... I'm surprised nobody made out in the first three days, to be honest."

Kourtney was disappointed that the tribes were divided into male/female since she's never been part of a large group of women and has hung around guys most of her life.

"Guys are simple. They’re easy to understand. Girls are sort of an enigma.... They say one thing and mean another and I'm just as clueless as the guys."

Still, she managed to align herself with Nina, Monica and Christina on Salani.

Not so much Alicia. 

"Alicia just kind of rubbed you the wrong way. If she doesn’t like you, it’s even magnified."

Most of Alicia's ire on last week's episode was saved for Christina and Kourtney figures had she not broken her wrist and been removed from the game, Christina would have been the first one voted out.

As for herself, Kourtney figures there are advantages to being sent home for medical reasons on the first episode of the season and not because her tribe wanted to get rid of her.

"Anybody who's ever been voted off first, I'm sure they don’t appreciate (me saying that, but) in some way I maintained a shred of dignity."

Survivor airs Wednesday nights on Global TV at 8 p.m.

(The photo of Kourtney is by Monty Brinton for CBS.)

The Voice: Blind auditions, part 4

Blind, not deaf and certainly not dumb, the judges/coaches continued auditions on Monday's episode of The Voice.

Different was good, as singers with perfectly respectable voices failed, heartbreakingly, to get a single red chair to turn while those who put their own twists on songs made it through. 

It was a girls' night for me. The singers I'm most excited about include sweet-voiced Naia Kete, sultry-voiced Charlotte Sometimes (what a great name!) and sassy Mathai (above). One guy made my favourites too, nerdy but soulful Jamie Lono.

The episode had its usual mix of performances, personal stories and amusing banter among the judges, with some laugh-out-loud moments and others that brought tears to the eyes.

With one more audition show left until the battle rounds begin, Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Christina Aguilera each have just two spots to fill on their teams of 12; Cee Lo Green has three.

Here's a quick rundown of who picked whom on Monday's show.

Team Christina: Christina's first get was earnest young father of two Jonathas, 23, who came to the States from Brazil when he was 5. His smooth voice on "U Got It Bad" had Cee Lo thinking he was going to turn around and find Usher playing a practical joke. His dance moves had the ladies in the audience squealing and Christina declaring she wanted to mould and package Jonathas. That led to the first Cee Lo double entendre of the night. "She's got package on her mind," he purred of Christina. Cee Lo and Christina put modesty aside to win Jonathas, with Cee Lo saying, "I can do anything," and Christina reminding Jonathas she'd been singing since she was 4. 

Christina also picked up Monique Benabou, a pretty, curly-haired 23-year-old from Alameda, Calif.; gospel/pop singer Anthony Evans, 33, of Dallas, whose father is radio preacher Tony Evans; and Ashley De La Rosa, who got mere seconds of screen time.

Team Blake: Blake is building a powerhouse team of women so far. Monday's first find was Naia Kete, 21, a dreadlocked Hollywood street musician whose take on "The Lazy Song" touched off a battle between Cee Lo and Blake. "Hello earth angel, I pushed my button for you," said Cee Lo. "Cee Lo, you push all my buttons, I've got to say," Naia flirted back. But her gut told her to go with Blake. While Cee Lo found Naia's voice "soothing and calming," Blake said, "it just made me want to stand up and dance." And he also promised to listen to Naia's ideas.

Blake scored another gem in Charlotte Sometimes, 23, who had overcome a jaw disease that left her unable to talk, let alone sing, as a teen. All four coaches turned for Charlotte's version of "Apologize." Adam and Christina sparred over whether Charlotte's voice was "simple," as Adam contended, while Cee Lo told them, "You guys, get a room." Blake said Charlotte reminded him of Xenia from last season and "Xenia has a record deal now is all I'm saying, you know, if you're into that kind of thing."

Blake also picked up country singer Jordan Rager and a woman named ALyx.

Team Cee Lo: Cee Lo's first pick of the night was Tony Vincent, who's starred in Rent, Jesus Christ Superstar and American Idiot on Broadway and gave up the chance to do We Will Rock You in London to audition for The Voice. The 38-year-old sported a bald head, eye makeup and a healthy ego, but the gamble looked like a bust until Cee Lo finally turned for Tony's theatrical version of "We Are the Champions." "Are you guys ears burned up? Was it not obvious that this guy has a wonderful voice?" Cee Lo chided the other coaches.

For my money, Cee Lo's best pick of the night was Jamie Lono. With his job in a Chicago sandwich shop and his wardrobe of pink shirt, loud tie, blue "dad" cardigan, brown pants and white belt, Jamie looked an unlikely bet for stardom, but that's why the auditions are blind. His slowed-down version of "Folsom Prison Blues" displayed a gorgeous tone and good dynamics. "What a great version of Johnny Cash. You put some soul in that thing," Cee Lo told Jamie, which Adam, also vying for Jamie, echoed. "I make sandwiches for a living, so this is awesome, thank you so much," responded Jamie. "You know what, man? We should hook up because I eat sandwiches," said Cee Lo in the best line of the night. Adam didn't stand a chance after that.

Cee Lo also picked up Justin Hopkins, a pleasant-faced former guitar player in Carson Daly's house band whose version of "Babylon" I found a bit shaky.

Team Adam: Adam takes his time picking singers, but he sure is enthusiastic about the ones he likes. His first pick was Nicolle Galyon, 27, a classical piano player turned country singer. Some nerves were evident in her performance of "You Save Me," but Adam said, "when you weren't nervous you were so special and I'm so happy I have you."

Adam may have scored the coup of the night by winning Mathai. The 18-year-old made her Indian parents nervous by refusing to follow her family into the medical profession to pursue singing, which made it even sweeter when three chairs turned and her mom was jumping up and down with excitement backstage. Mathai had an appealing catch in her voice as she delivered a sweet-sexy verison of Adele's "Rumour Has It." "Attention, we are looking at a star right here," declared Blake. But Adam's intensity won the day. "You were just laying down this sassiness, which was amazing. You owned everything you were doing and I'm really, really desperate to have you on my team because I love you," he said.

Adam also chose Karla Davis, another of those blink and you'll miss them singers we saw.

The blind auditions continue next Monday at 8 p.m. on CTV and I'll have the recap here.

The Bachelor: The hometown visits (spoiler alert)

Well, it wasn't stuffed dead animals in the basement, but another parent derailed their offspring's shot at love on The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise.

Going into Monday's hometown episode of The Bachelor, I figured I knew exactly how it would go down. It seemed like squeaky-voiced Nicki was so much roadkill on Ben Flajnik's path to manufactured love.

But I wasn't counting on Mr. and Mrs. Moral Majority, a.k.a. Kacie's parents. 

The writing was on the wall when Kacie, fresh from welcoming Ben to Clarksville, Tenn., with a marching band and a display of her baton-twirling prowess (really? didn't we already do that?), told him her dad was a federal probation officer who didn't drink.

"That's great, I'm a winemaker and my business is booze. I don't know what we're gonna have in common," Ben said in voiceover.

Then, when Kacie's stern father asked Ben what made him choose Kacie, the best Ben could come up with was, "Her ability to communicate was a big thing. I sensed this good quality in her." No wonder dad's response was a skeptical "Hmmmm."

Mom put the nail in the coffin by telling Ben she'd have a serious problem with Kacie and Ben living together before marriage. And that's just what any independent and not noticeably religious 28-year-old man wants to hear from his prospective mother-in-law.

By the time Ben gave Kacie a tepid kiss goodbye in the driveway, things weren't looking good for the 24-year-old administrative assistant.

By contrast, Ben's hometown date with Courtney in Scottsdale, Ariz., started with a family love-in (her dad was already asking Ben for grandkids) and ended with a surprisingly touching faux wedding ceremony.

It's a good thing the producers chose to show that last, because Ben's overenthusiastic pronouncements about how much he enjoyed seeing the other ladies and their families would have been even less credible than these things usually are.

And if Lindzi and Nicki had watched the fake wedding before Monday's rose ceremony, they would have been jumping into the limo with Kacie and driving far away from Ben.

Yep, Courtney called it: she is definitely winning.

Of course, because we have a couple of weeks to go, we're being asked to believe there's still a chance Ben could dump Courtney over her shabby treatment of her rivals. As if.

The promo for next Monday shows Courtney expressing her fear she'll lose Ben over "the damage I caused the other girls" (what? trash talking and gloating is cause for serious mental harm?). And then, Ben exclaims "Holy f--k" after answering a knock on his door, followed by a worried declaration that it will take him a while to figure out "this whole situation."

Unless that knock on the door was Chris Harrison telling Ben that Courtney snapped and beat Lindzi with a horseshoe or punched Nicki right in her extremely white teeth, I can't see anything that would dissuade Ben from choosing Courtney in the finale. And even that probably wouldn't be enough.

So, with that said, let's take a quick look at the hometown dates. 

Lindzi in Ocala, Fla.: Say, did you know that Lindzi likes horses? She made a big impression on Ben when she rode up to the Los Angeles mansion on a horse in the season premiere, so might as well try it again on the hometown date. And it worked. Ben thought she looked sexy when she rode up on her white and brown mount. Then she hitched the horse to a small carriage and made Ben steer on the way to their picnic.

Also, Lindzi, who's 27, apparently doesn't get out much when it's not with horses because to hear her tell it, she'd only had one serious relationship in her life with the only other guy she'd brought home to meet her parents. Yeah, no pressure there. 

Lindzi's parents liked wine and dogs, so that was good for Ben, and they got married in the same city hall in San Francisco where Lindzi and Ben had their first date, which was like an omen, so you totally knew Lindzi was getting a rose at the end of the show. Also, she opened up to Ben by admitting she had been living with her old boyfriend (good thing Kacie's parents didn't hear that) and we know how much Ben likes confessions.

Lindzi's heart had been broken, but she realized that love was kind of like riding a horse. "If you fall off, you get back on and love's the same way." Wow, deep.

The visit ended with a wine toast by the fire and hugs from the folks for their prospective son-in-law, and big smooches between Lindzi and Ben. "I think I might be falling in love with Lindzi," said Ben.

Kacie in Clarksville, Tenn.: Not only did Kacie greet Ben with a marching band and her baton, she brought him to the Buster Boguskie high school football field, named after her grandfather. Granddad was not only a paragon of community service, having played triple A baseball in town, sat on city council and run a sporting goods store, but he was a romantic model too. In fact, Kacie's grandmother loved him so much she died of a broken heart, Kacie told Ben, adding, "I feel like I've had such great examples of what love and marriage is, and that's exactly what I want." "That's great," responded Ben, not at all convincingly.

The fact is the poor guy was scared crapless before he got to her parents' door. "Don't take it personally if I don't kiss you," he told Kacie after getting the lowdown on her Bible Belt folks.

At the house, Kacie pulled aside her sister to try to rustle up some moral support while her dad admonished Ben not to rush into anything and to let Kacie down as soon as possible if she wasn't "the one." "I'm not sure he likes me or that I'm the son-in-law he had in mind for his daughter," said Ben.

Throw in Ben's discouraging talk with mom and dad telling Kacie he wouldn't give Ben permission to propose, and it was pretty clear Kacie would face the same fate as Kirk, the suitor in Ali's Bachelorette season who got dumped after his dad took animal lover Ali to the basement to see his taxidermy collection.

Nicki in Fort Worth, Texas: After such a downer of visit, it was lucky the next thing we saw was Ben's rendezvous with cheerful, ever smiling Nicki. Their date included such cliche activities as buying cowboy boots and hats, and drinking something out of straws in some sort of saloon.

That also provided an opening for another silly analogy: "Finding the right boot is very similar to finding the right partner in love. You have to get just the right fit," said Nicki. Sure, whatever.

Nicki said she didn't want to beat a dead horse, but that's exactly what she did by bringing up her divorce again. And she mentioned that she wouldn't marry someone her parents didn't approve of, so Ben could have been in trouble if Nicki's dad was anything like Kacie's dad.

Luckily though, both her folks, who are themselves divorced, were affable sorts. And after hearing Nicki bubble over about how she was falling for Ben, they gave her their blessing. Even her kid brother said, "I actually like the guy."

Nicki spirited Ben to an upstairs bedroom to tell him she loved him, and he was okay with that. "Today, there were moments where I looked over at Nicki and said, 'I love this girl,'" said Ben. Or at least, he seemed to love the family.

Courtney in Scottsdale, Ariz.: A funny thing happened in Scottsdale. Courtney was transformed from a petty, vindictive, annoying creep who does weird things with her face into a real person with seemingly genuine feelings. Who knew?

It was also refreshing to see that Courtney had had multiple relationships instead of obsessing over one big one that got away like Nicki and Lindzi. Oh sure, Courtney said, her family had seen her heartbroken, but "I'm happy to introduce them to someone who I think won't break my heart."

Mom Sherry was the most skeptical, but after Courtney told her that Ben made her feel special and she was ready to say yes to a proposal, Sherry was ready to welcome Ben into the family. Ben had already aced the interview with dad Rick by assuring him he was keen to provide the desired grandchildren.

Courtney wanted to tell Ben she was "100 per cent in love" with him and she found a unique way to do it: staging a fake outdoor wedding complete with a minister, vows written in notebooks and rings made of twigs.

Thing is the vows that Ben and Courtney wrote didn't sound fake at all. 

"From the moment I saw you, you took my breath away," Ben told Courtney. "What I asked myself after our first date was, is this too good to be true. The answer I found in Belize is no, you are incredible ... You are strong, kind and beautiful, and I find myself falling for you more and more every time I'm with you."

Courtney got teary-eyed delivering her vows. "Ben, I'm looking for love, real love, passionate, consuming, can't live without each other love ... when I look at you from across the room I know your happiness is the key to mine ... I will trust you, respect you, encourage you, laugh with you and cry with you for all the days of my life..."

She added, "I want you to know that I'm in love with you."

"Wow," Ben responded, looking a little teary-eyed himself. 

Back in L.A., at the rose ceremony, Courtney got the first flower, followed by Lindzi and Nicki.

Kacie held it together pretty well as Ben walked her to the limo but fell apart in the back seat. 

"This is why I don't love, this is why," she sobbed. "I loved him and I don't know what to do now. How does this happen? What the f--k happened? What the f--k happened?"

Hint: ask your parents.

Next week, it's Switzerland for Ben and the last three standing. And you know what that means: fantasy suite dates. It's probably a good thing Kacie didn't make it that far. If mom and dad disapprove of cohabitating, imagine what they'd think of a televised one-night stand.

As usual, I'll be watching, Monday at 8 p.m. on OMNI TV, and recapping the episode here.

So what did you think of the hometown dates? Were you shocked that Kacie went home? Were you shocked that Courtney apparently has a heart?

Share your comments here, on Twitter @realityeo or on my Facebook page.

(The photos of Kacie with her baton, and Ben wth Courtney are by Katherine Bomboy-Thornton and Ralph Freso for ABC.)

Reality Check on a break

Hello readers, I'm out of town this week, so there will be no recaps of The Bachelor, The Voice, American Idol or Survivor this week. I'll be catching up on everything I missed on the weekend and the recaps will start up again next Monday. Till then, happy Valentine's Day and happy reality to everyone.

Stephen Leacock's Canadian Idol connection

The new TV movie Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, based on the book by Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock, has a veritable Who's Who of Canadian stars in the cast (check out my colleague Rob Salem's article here).

Of potential interest to Canadian reality TV fans is one Steffi DiDomenicantonio, who made the Top 10 in Season 4 of Canadian Idol.

Steffi D plays a character named Lila Drone in the movie, which airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

(The photo shows Steffi as Ilse in the musical Spring Awakening, which visited Toronto in 2009, and it's by Paul Kolnik.)

Dragons' Den starts audition tour

(The Dragons, from left, Jim Treliving, Kevin O'Leary, Arlene Dickinson, Robert Herjavec and Bruce Croxon in a CBC photo.)

Think you've got what it takes to be Dragon prey?

The producers of Dragons' Den are going on an audition tour, making more than 40 stops in Canadian cities, CBC says.

Auditions start Saturday in Toronto, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the CBC Broadcasting Centre atrium, 25 John St. You can find out more about the other cities on the tour here. 

Interested entrepreneurs should be prepared to pitch their businesses in less than five minutes. If they impress producers, they could face the Dragons when filming for the new season begins. Candidates should apply online and bring a completed application form to the audition.

The current season of Dragons' Den airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

American Idol: Group Night, Part 1

(An unidentified contestant is helped to her feet after fainting during Hollywood Week in a Fox photo by Michael Becker.) 

What are they doing to those poor kids, I was thinking as Idol's second Hollywood episode began.

There were glimpses of people being tended by medics, Ryan Seacrest racing for the stage as a woman collapses and of our old friend Symone Black, lying apparently unconscious after falling off the stage.

The good news is that Symone got back into the competition after a visit to hospital where she was diagnosed with dehydration. Not drinking and eating enough made her black out as she was answering Randy Jackson's question (no, no, she didn't nod off in anticipation of another season of meaningless catch phrases; shame on you). And she even made it back in time to find a group for the infamous Group Night challenge.

In case we had any doubt, Ryan reminded us off the top that Group Night is "the hardest part of Hollywood Week; the most intense, stressful, punishing night of their lives. With one casualty already (cue shots of Symone) the night is only going to get worse."

And it did, not just for the competitors but for the viewers, too. We had to slog through an hourlong episode filled with angst, personality conflict, illness and exhaustion only to be told we won't get our reward - the group night performances - until next Wednesday night.

At this rate, Hollywood Week will be more like Hollywood Month.

Before Group Night got started, we saw the last of the eliminations from Day 2 of the individual auditions.

Lauren Mink, the woman who works with adults with developmental disabilities, was sent packing. So was Ethan Jones, the St. Louis auditioner whose musician dad was in rehab. Guess Steven Tyler won't be meeting him now when he gets out.

Jeremy Rosado, whom I'm not fussy on, did make it through, along with someone named Neco Starr (I think I spelled it right), whom I have no recollection of seeing.

Ryan told us there were 185 contestants left. And those 185 were very happy to have survived the cut. We know because we saw them singing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" together in the holding room while Adam Brock played piano and some people paired off to dance.

But here comes Ryan "The Grim Reaper" Seacrest: "By the end of tomorrow night, almost half of them will be gone, having failed the tried and true Idol nightmare that is about to come." Spoilsport.

It began with executive producer Ken Warwick telling everyone to form groups of four or five people, with combinations of Day 1 and 2 auditioners. That set off a chaotic scene as people wandered around the auditorium trying to hook up. The groups had just one night to learn one of 20 songs and figure out how to stage it, including choreography.

The most hard-done-by were St. Louis cop Alisha Bernhardt, whose aggressive demeanour and rigid insistence on singing the song "Joy to the World" (the Three Dog Night version not the Christmas carol; Alisha will get angry if you call it a Christmas carol) scared people off. 

Amy Brumfield, a.k.a. the woman who lives in a tent in the woods, was also in a bad way, mainly because she was so sick with the flu she could barely stand up. 

Country singer Richie Law was also groupless, as was Brianna Bell, who kept turning her nose up at people's song choices with an emphatic "Oh no," until she joined up with The Betties.

And then, once everybody had finally found groups, we had the usual personality clashes plus some added fun as the flu made the rounds. 

Brielle von Hugel's stage mom hovered and clucked while Brielle bossed her group around, because mom didn't think Kyle Crews had a strong enough voice to start the song.

One of the girls from The Betties upchucked in a plastic bag, while Amy, still feeling really ill, got some heat from music director Michael Orland for crying.

Meanwhile, who knew cowboys could be such divas as Richie browbeat the guys in the MIT group, including ailing Phil Phillips (kidney stones), Jairon Jackson and Heejun Han, into attempting four-part harmonies and complicated choreography so they wouldn't be boring. 

"I don't know how they do it in Cowboy Town, but this is not how we bring it down, man," protested Heejun. 

"Now I have a very, very bad perspective toward cowboys, even Dallas Cowboys. Freakin' cowboys."

The group that Alisha joined, Four Girls and a Guy, was without the guy, as Christian Triplehead retreated to his room to barf. He made it back down but ended up collapsing onto the carpet, too weak to stand. And then Alisha went off to sleep, so I bet that group will do real well.

Diva Brianna decided to sleep too, which left a girl named Jennifer crying. Eventually everybody in The Betties abandoned Jen, until sometime between 2:35 and 5:11 in the morning, when Brianna returned, apparently panic-stricken when she realized other groups were still awake and practising. So she helped Jen with her dance steps and Jen tried to help her remember the words to "Hit 'Em Up Style." That last bit looked pretty hopeless to me.

But guess what? The Betties are first up when we finally get to see some performances ... next week. Because you know, Idol is a singing competition, not a puking, arguing or collapsing competition.

For those of you who enjoy watching people collapse, there'll be more of that to come too, including the woman in the red jacket whose tumble caused Ryan to sprint from the backstage area, swearing and shoving some woman out of the way. Apparently, besides being a TV host, radio host, producer and very, very rich, Ryan is also an emergency responder. Does that mean he can yell "Medic" louder than Nigel Lythgoe?

Sorry, I lapsed into sarcasm there for a moment.  

You can tune in again next Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CTV. It's a two-hour show, so I'm pretty sure there'll be actual singing.

What there won't be is a recap, at least not right away, since I'll be away next week. But I'll be back and posting as soon as I can.