Results tagged “realitytelevision”

Depressed, laid off, drunk and want a cigarette? Unless you can bum one off a friendly big spender, you'll pay dearly for it, thanks to a state sin tax increase that went into effect today. In Washington, each pack of smokes now carries a $3.035 tax. Perhaps it's time to pick a different, cheaper vice, such as womanizing or watching reality television.

On Friday evening, Seattlest made our way down to the fashion event of the season: Product Runway at the South Lake Union Naval Reserve. Nineteen teams competed to show the best couture creation made of interior design elements.

Somehow we were shocked last night when our stupid friend who finds these things out ahead of time let it slip that Kristy Lee Cook would be eliminated from American Idol. We're not sure why we were so shocked. We'd speculated about her elimination for weeks. For weeks, she made us scratch our head as she delivered mediocre-to-bad performance after mediocre-to-bad performance.

Bravo!-glam event of this spring, twenty teams from several of Seattle's best design firms will showcase the innovative (and hopefully, fierce!) haute couture lines they've been challenged to design from manufacturing materials like upholstery, plastics, and lighting. Though this won't be on TV, the entertainment value of this one-night-only fashion show looks very promising.

Our friend with whom we were watching this week's installment of How Eight People Slaughter Good Songs noted that Kristy Lee was one of the only people on American Idol who didn't do something to make us angry. In fact, she seriously brought it this week (if you can forgive one or two pitchy moments in a 90-second version of a Martina McBride song). KLC's choice: "Anyway."

It's Idol Gives Back week on American Idol this week, which means tonight's theme is "Songs That Inspire You." We know it's too late for Kristy Lee Cook to choose a song—if she doesn't have a good one in the pocket already, she loses. But, we have a brilliant idea for her, even though we know Randy "The Dawg" Jackson wouldn't be too thrilled with us. Here's our suggestion for what our local cutie can pull off tonight and save herself a place in the Top 7:

Well, America, it's starting to look like Kristy Lee is the new Sanjaya, albeit with about 100 times more actual talent. She keeps winding up in the bottom two or three, and then getting spared. We're not sure how much longer that can possibly go on, but we're happy to keep filling you in on the drama.

For the second week in a row on American Idol, a handful of young-and-pretties hacked away at some of the best rock songs ever written--songs they, apparently in most cases, had never even heard before.

Since we speculated yesterday that our only regional tie to a reality show at the moment--Selma, Ore., resident Kristy Lee Cook--was about to get axed, we figured we'd update. Just to put your minds at ease as we head slowly into the weekend, Kristy Lee Cook was in the bottom three on American Idol last night, along with Syesha Mercado and David Hernandez. But she gets one more shot.

Who knew?

Also lapsing into first person, since that's what my predecessor did.

We recently asked friends and strangers if hosts of popular television shows “Devine Design”, “Flip This House” and “House Hunters” were real-life designers and real estate agents before network giants “discovered” them.

You know how when you're watching television during a presidential address and you're frantically flipping channels to get away from it, but his face just reappears on the screen every time with a new logo splashed in the corner? Seattlest had that experience while trying to watch the news this morning, except instead of running from the president we were trying to escape American Idol. Did you know that American Idol is having auditions in Seattle this week? Whatever, liar, you totally know.

One of the ideas we take for granted is that we are but one in a sea of many, with that anonymity providing both comfort and solace. Part of the appeal of the glut of reality television (and shock radio and tabloids before that) is that there is this transparency applied to an individual's existence, the removal, however temporary, of the social protections that we hold dear. The new Pardon Me exhibit at Vancouver's Charles H. Scott Gallery explores the intersection between our public and private lives, and how even small benign disruptions cause discomfort.

We came across this news item and felt that the Reality TV watchers out there would appreciate a link. Minnesota newspapers are reporting on a Seattle family that got shanghaied by The Discovery Channel on the promise of a free vacation.

98 people have applied for the vacant seat on the Seattle City Council.

Once upon a 1998 the Real World was filmed in Seattle and the cast lived on one of the piers down by Myrtle Edwards. They were probably going for a houseboat feel but couldn't find or build anything large enough to contain the cast along with the cameras and equipment it takes to make the World Real. It probably worked in favor of the show because whenever you're trying to brainwash someone it's best to isolate them from anyone who's not a part of your message and no one lived down there in 1998. Ah, a reality TV producer's wet dream: Eight young adults living drunken and alone near an urban center..

What exactly is behind our sudden fascination with "found" material? Are we simply so enamoured with the cheap voyueristic thrills that reality television affords us that we've begun seeking out similar glimpses into the lives of others? Get away from that window you freak! Perverts...