Fighting The Suburbs

The Legend of the Seeker: Why Hulu Stays In Business

I blogged about Hulu from day 1 of beta and praised how it worked, and its content, especially for bloggers since you can blog any segment of any show. If you’re a TV blogger that’s invaluable. I’m also a TV geek-a-zoid. As a kid I watched a lot of syndicated TV. Star Trek The Next Generation was the penultimate of any shows I watched on late Sunday mornings.

Sam Raimi made a name for himself with Xena and Hercules (neither one a favorite of mine) a decade ago. His latest is Legend of the Seeker. It’s a simple concept. Farmboy discovers he is the ultimate hero of a medieval and of course magical realm.
The early episodes were a bit plodding but recently they’ve gotten quite good. Especially, the past two, “Denna” and “Puppeteer.”

Why do I blog about it here? Because, if Hulu wasn’t around I’d probably never watch it. Sure, I have a DVR and could set a reminder and tape it but believe it or not the DVR is pretty full with new episodes airing regularly these days. Plus, I stay up about an hour after the wife goes to bed to blog or surf the web so I can watch Seeker on Hulu while I’m doing all that. With my Internet connection I never really have a problem watching in even a very large browser window.

I also watch Daily Show and Colbert Report on Hulu. But I think it’s new shows like Seeker that really benefit from the added convenience of the service. 

Bruce Wolf: Worst Sportscaster in Chicago

We religiously watch NBC5 for news basically because we watch NBC's national newscasts and we're really just too lazy to change the channel. While we find many of the newscasters and personalities of high quality there is one member of the team who drags down any newscast.

Bruce Wolf's sportscasts are ridiculous.

He thinks he's funny but the sarcasm is actually mean-spirited and delivered terribly. You can be funny and deliver sarcasm, see The Daily Show. Wolf does not do that. He may only be the weekend or filler sports anchor, but we cringe every time we see him. I know he has some baggage from Fox but beyond that, he's just plain bad.

I can't believe there isn't some straight forward sports guy in Des Moines or Terre Haute who would kill for a weekend sports slot on a Chicago station. Anyone, yes anyone, would be better than Bruce Wolf. Heck, he doesn't even rank high enough to get on the NBC5 website.

Top Chef Final Four: Go Stephanie

After tonight Courtney and I are betting on Stephanie going all the way. Again, we're biased since this is the first contestant who's cooking we've actually tasted. Still, she's easily the most likable on the show. Hmmm...OK that isn't too hard this year either. Sure we don't mind Richard or Antonia but there's not much chemistry or antagonizing going on to fuel any drama. Lisa is just plain annoying and we all know she's not going to win nor does she deserve to be in the final four.

In a season of the nice guys all winning Stephanie would be the logical choice. And of course, we'd expect her to open her new restaurant in Chicago. Photo from TimeOut Chicago.

Top Chef Chicago: Episode 1

We’re Top Chef fans to begin with, but having season four set in Chicago has us that much more invested in the cooking reality program.

This is also the first time we know one of the contestants. Well not personally, but we used to eat at Stephanie’s Scylla. We weren’t regulars but went there a few times and really enjoyed it. We now live even closer to the old space.

Knowing how good Scylla was, we were really surprised to watch last night’s episode and see how nervous Stephanie was amongst the other contestants. Many might have been assistant chefs at top restaurants, but Scylla was written up everywhere!

As for the other contestants, do any other viewers out there notice a trend in the casting of this show? We realize they’re “real” people but a cocky Asian guy, a lesbian cook with almost identical haircut as last year’s lesbian contestant, the Spike guy looks a lot like Sam from last season, and Andrew is kind of like season 1 winner Harold but on crystal meth.

Back to Stephanie: The duck dish that won her the first challenge – Go Stephanie! – last night looked like something that would have totally come out of Scylla. Regardless if she wins the $100K, we hope she opens up another restaurant in Chicago soon. Oh, and we’re also glad to see Nimma go home. She was a dud from the start.

Worst Chicago Cable Commercial Yet

You know the one I’m talking about before even reading this. It’s bad enough we have to watch Comcast vs. AT&T commercials non-stop, but the new AT&T ones with the awful Harry Caray impersonator are the worst yet. The Comcast Zen ads are dumb but not as grating as the Cray spots.

I’m not even offended they used Caray like the Sun-Times’ Lewis Lazare is. In this video Harry obviously is tickled by the same imitator who’s in the commercials. I simply think they’re stupid, and after the 12th time you see them per day you start to develop a twitch.

Top Chef Coming to Chicago

Season four of one of our favorite reality shows, Top Chef will be filmed in Chicago according to the Tribune’s Maureen Ryan. Casting is in full swing. Mail in applications are due August 15th. Everyone out there prep your camera phones for Padma sightings. We still can’t explain the attraction folks have for her.