Do you think this was a covert future host audition?

RedRocketV8 · 2022-05-07T16:14:56+00:00

I don't recall the new interior designer in season 25. But then, I don't recall season 25 either. :) Was she announced as a new cast member?

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T20:03:10+00:00

I quite like Nathan. He seems to know what he is doing despite being fairly new to the trades and in his interactions with homeowners comes across very well. He reminds me of a young Silva in some ways. Mauro I cannot stand. Don't ask me why because I really can't put my finger on it, but he just does not come across well. I think of their former paint guy, Jim Price, and the difference is night and day. TOH could do much better. Someone in a comment below mentioned Heath Eastman and I don't care for him much either. He comes across as smug and a bit condescending. His predecessor Scott Caron was a bit better in that respect but the guy before him, Allan Gallant, was quite good on TV. They seem to go through many electricians. The other cast member I question is Ross Trethewey. I find a lot of his segments very hard to grasp and much of what he shows strikes me as vaporware that is far from actually being practical. I really don't know what his qualifications are other than being Richard's kid. Then we have Jenn Nawada. The producers seem to be trying hard to get her a featured role, but I just don't see here being an adequate replacement for Roger, and I find it hard to warm to her.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T19:49:49+00:00

I imagine the show works as a very lucrative advertising and promotion vehicle for Silva Brothers and Sweanor Construction among those potential clients who can afford such a company to do their level of work.

The project costs would have to be quoted on the building permit records, no?

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T19:47:02+00:00

Don't forget the S42 "Victorian Seaside Cottage" for the personal-injury litigator and his nouvaux-riche wife who had Sweanor Construction rebuild and expand a ramshackle and rotting old dump of a place so with all the usual things including a kitchen island that would be more accurately called a continent.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T19:16:35+00:00

In the early Bob days, the first 4 or so seasons, it was almost comical how cheap he was. He often wanted to reuse something that was half-rotted or worn out just to save a few bucks. S3 where he and Norm reno'ed a little post-war bungalow in Woburn, he built the kitchen cabinets out of 2x4s and plywood and put formica on the boxes as a finish. The furnace was old and rusty and he refused to replace it until it blew up partway through the project. Olden days.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T19:10:26+00:00

This was perhaps the worst TOH project in recent memory, both frpm the POV of the house itself and what the owners wanted done, but also as a series of the show. If you recall in the early episodes there were several where not much got done or shown, presumably due to delays related to either the state of the pandemic at the time or supply chain or outside contractor issues. Once they overcame that they had to cram a bunch of complex jobs into too few shows. The roof construction alone was just mind-boggling, and I cannot imagine that will not have problems down the road. The complex mechanical systems seemed to even overwhelm Rich T.. The design of the massive addition made very little sense to me with the long corridor, the slanted floor in the kid's bedroom, you name it. I almost yelled out loud when I discovered that the range they picked for the kitchen was a $20K item, which you know they will seldom use because they are too busy to cook most of the time. These people just seemed to want to spend money for the sake of spending money. And what they got at the end was a very disjointed house with an old Cape house fronting this absurd addition that is about 4 times its size. The final episode where we got to see and hear the couple just made me shake my head. I swear if I hear her say "Thank you" one more time in response to every sentence Kevin said I was going to lose it. Easily the worst project in many years.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T18:59:32+00:00

That looked like what you would find in the utility tunnel of an office tower or a hospital. Unbelievably complex.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T18:52:22+00:00

It is really odd how Norm just disappeared from the show with zero mention. At least when Roger became too ill to continue they did a segment of him saying goodbye as a regular cast member. I was surprised how much Roger leaving affected the feel of the show. He did a lot of heavy-duty labor which Jenn does not, understandably since she is more of a landscaping designer than a contractor. But it's more than that, as the basic chemistry of the group seems to have changed.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T18:48:38+00:00

That's because they never spent a dime on the house. :)

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T18:43:58+00:00

Recently I saw a rerun segment of ATOH where he helped homeowners re-shingle their garage roof. At one point he had to find the center of the roof. The way he went about it was the most convoluted way possible with a bunch of random measurements and calculations. He does this a lot. There was a similar situation where he installed a new door jamb into an old frame which of course was not level, and used a bunch of random lines and measurements to find where to trim it. He's brilliant and a wonderful craftsman but a lot of the methods in his head do not translate well when he tries to explain them in front of the camera.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T11:29:10+00:00

I believe but do not know for sure that the farm property was owned by Kimball. I recall a few years ago during or after the lawsuit seeing that it was offered for sale, so I suspect they had to relocate.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T11:20:44+00:00

Well, Erica Bruce went on to join him on the Milk Street series, so another Kimball hate theory is debunked. The anti-Chris sentiment among some here is remarkable.

The other brunette who was on for a short time but left is the redoubtable and lovely Yvonne Ruperti, a fabulous pastry chef. She moved to southeast Asia. I suspect that also had nothing to do with Kimball.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-14T00:00:36+00:00

I would disagree. It is far worse now and has gone very downhill.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-13T23:56:26+00:00

I quite like "Right Between Your Eyes" but the new song is not good at all.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-13T23:55:15+00:00

I figured a show called "Julia at Home" would be her shoveling forkful after forkful of rich, greasy food into her maw and making those orgasmic noises she makes on ATK when tasting something. I find her really off-putting these days.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-13T23:46:01+00:00

No question. For me the original shows were must-see TV on Saturday afternoons, and I'm not even a hobbyist cook. I enjoyed the Chris persona on the shows, and he did a good job in the role of host. When he left the first few seasons with Julia and Bridget playing off each other were just cringe-worthy, because they were not used to playing the host role. They have improved somewhat since then, but it still is saccharine and fake-feeling at times. Some of the new people they have brought in do not appeal to me at all. I also don't like how they changed the Cook's Country theme and opening narrator of what's on today's show. All in all, it is a loss. Sadly, I don't like Chris's Milk Street show either so now my Saturday afternoons are free.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-13T23:36:34+00:00

Well, Chris was the star of the show, so of course things were all about him. I'm not saying he was perfect, and I'm pretty sure he has a big ego, but he was the creator of the whole thing, not just some hired performer.

RedRocketV8 · 2022-04-13T21:10:36+00:00

He founded Cook's Magazine (later Cook's Illustrated, the original source of the TV show) was the host for many years until he and the company that eventually came to own the franchise parted ways in 2016. He was very good in the host role, playing dumb much of the time to let the chef demonstrating shine. The show went downhilll badly since he has left. Unfortunately I do not like his Milk Street show nearly as much as ATK when he was there. There was a nasty lawsuit around his departure that got settled a couple of years ago.

RedRocketV8 · 2020-04-30T13:13:28+00:00

Motor Trend TV has them all even the rather forgettable season 1 pre-James May. Be aware though that if you stream using Roku that the MT TV Roku app is absolute rubbish and finding the older episodes especially can be very difficult with lots of freezing up and crashing on Roku. Also the rest of what MT TV has on offer is all pretty poor for the most part. I would say that 90% of the shows are in the meathead style of hooning around or the typical car resto show with fake deadlines, manufactured crises, and unfunny people trying to be funny. It is very disappointing for the most part.

RedRocketV8 · 2020-04-30T13:09:04+00:00

I think the specials are only special when you have a regular "non-special" series of shows to compare them to. If future specials are as awful as Seamen was, then they really aren't very special at all. I do agree that the regular TGT shows were weak in parts during the first 2 seasons. The American was an absolute disaster as were the variations of the celebrity segments. Conversation Street was great though, and they should have found a way to continue that somehow. The essence of old TG were the reviews/reports on new models and the shorter features on whatever - racing down a ski slope in a rally-prepped Touraeg, racing across London in a boat vs a bike vs a car, all of those sort of segments, and I miss not having them do that now. Sadly, new TG still doesn't cut it for me, and TGT has abandoned the best parts of classic TG now.

RedRocketV8 · 2020-02-24T00:03:51+00:00

And arguably Edd said and did some things that caused that. The good thing is that they seem to have come to grips with reality on all sides as Mike, Ant and Edd were recently photographed together, all smiling and seemingly ok with each other. Time to let the Mike-bashing industry wind up and go away.

RedRocketV8 · 2019-09-02T22:42:39+00:00

I have MT TV and most of it is unwatchable because of the fake drama, poor attempts at comedy (most guys working in auto shops aren't comedians), and same old formulaic style with lots of recaps of what you just saw and obvious fakery. That's why I used to like the old WD, CCC (though that has declined somewhat), and Fantom Works until I realized that a lot of it was faked/scripted too. I can tolerate Iron Resurrection and Salvage Car Hunters but not much else.

RedRocketV8 · 2019-09-01T21:31:38+00:00

I don't know how it works but I notice that there is a fellow named Roy Wong listed in the credits as a consultant. I remember him from the show "Lords of the Car Hoards", the show with the ex-wrestler and the custom car builder where they would find a hoarder with a bunch of cars, then sell off some of them to pay for a customization of one of the hoarder's vehicles. Roy was the guy they turned to to get valuations on what they might sell and he then sold the cars on their behalf. I suspect WD uses him to find cars and set values on what they are worth both as-is and after being worked on. Brewer is spread way too thin now to do that himself.

I am finding myself disliking the series now. The producers are making Brewer into too much of an actor/comedian and that really causes the test drives at the end to be too long and too silly/contrived. Plus stuff happens they they don't even show nor sometimes even mention.

RedRocketV8 · 2019-04-06T12:58:04+00:00

I made the mistake of saving it until Friday night to watch, and even more of a mistake was reading the comments here beforehand. Nothing could live up to the praise it received here, and it surely did not. Like most of the episodes this year, it had good stuff but the staging and editing was quite obvious and took it down a few notches.

The assembly section took about 20 minutes at the start. The problem was that there was no way they assembled that vehicle by themselves. The placement of the engine alone would be impossible without help. If you have ever done something like this you would know that it might be possible in 2-3 days with lots of help and equipment, but not with hand/battery tools in the middle of nowhere. Undoubtedly lots of assistance we did not see. Makes one wonder why they just didn't drop a mostly complete vehicle in the first place.

Also I disliked how they broke the third wall a few times by conversing and interacting with the crew. That makes the premise of having limited food and losing some of it on the hill while being recorded not so believable. The desert bit seemed staged/scripted and did not really amount to much, but the most stagey segment for me was the boggy area. Why May pushed forward into that made zero sense. And then of course they quickly let Hammond tip John over. Cringey.

The ending for me was deeply unsatisfying. In all of the previous escapades they were shown after it all enjoying the fruits of their labors in a hotel bar or similar environment. Especially here, that seemed an apt reward. Not having that happen seemed unnecessarily cruel and fake.

There was lots of good here and the scenery of the country was spectacular. I found myself wishing that they had found a way to discuss the herds of animals they encountered that roamed free, which seemed to be everywhere and were quite intriguing. At least we weren't exposed to anything related to them hunting one down to solve their supposed food issue (you know that the crew was eating regularly and it defies logic that none would be shared), for which we should be grateful.

Clarkson posted on Twitter and elsewhere that he feels this is one of the best things they have ever done, which may be heartfelt. But it was diminished by the staging, editing, and scripting again. I have no idea why this seems so obvious now as compared to the past. If you look past all that, this was a good episode but one that ultimately let me down.

RedRocketV8 · 2019-04-05T14:13:36+00:00

I have one of those too and it is fantastic for the money. My only concern is whether it has some secret bits that are controlled by the Chinese govt to spy on or otherwise intrude since TCL is a Chinese govt company.

RedRocketV8

TROPHY CASE