MasterChef Junior is back with another scrumptious season on Fox tonight at 8p and you want to see what they have cooked up for us.
This season’s 19 contestants consist of two 8-year-olds; four 9-year-olds; three 10-year-olds; five 11-year-olds and five 12-year-olds. One of those 8-year-olds is the show’s youngest competitor to date and he is also the littlest one yet. So little, he has problems lifting up the box to reveal the items in that week’s Mystery Box Challenge. Before you feel bad for Riley, don’t because he is one tough competitor. All of these pre-teens prove to be excellent Chefs. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them can cook better than you and me.
On tonight’s episode, they start with a Mystery Box Challenge that ends with a MasterChef Junior first. Then for the elimination challenge, the contestants have to make a pasta dish from scratch. To anyone who has tried to make the pasta, you know it is not easy. Yet they make it seem that way. Finally, the show concludes with a multiple elimination and a lot of tears. So have the tissues ready. But it OK to cry a little bit because the rest of the episode makes you smile. MasterChef Junior is pure happiness, and we all need more of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxwm35KthnQ
Then at 9p, it is time for a show that instead of pumping kids up, it seems to destroy their spirits. That’s right, Dance Moms is back for season 5 on Lifetime, and it is time for this show to end.
When it first started out, it was fun because it was about the dancers. Now it is all about the conflicts.
First, they introduced Cathy. Then when Abby Lee Miller and her didn’t get along, they turned her into an evil witch that fights with Abby and the moms in every episode she appears in. When the show couldn’t do that every week, they created a new team to compete with the elite dance team. Proving to be a failure, they ended that. Another way to bring conflict to the show was to bring in other dancers so that their mom’s could fight with moms that were already on the show. But that wasn’t enough, when one of the original moms got into a confrontation with Abby Lee and it became national news, the show decided to do more of that. On the season 4 finale, Christi got into a verbal argument with Abby Lee over how she treat her daughter Chloe. Words were said by the dance teacher that were so awful, they walked out.
Did that mean they walked off the show permanently? In tonight’s episode, we find out yes they did. Now the remaining moms are saying that the two other moms are trying to shut down Abby’s studio and bad mouth them whenever they can. Well, it stops for a little while because one of the past dancers of the week returns to cause more friction between the moms. It works, but the show doesn’t anymore.
It is all so staged. I wouldn’t mind it, if it wasn’t such a hateful show. As the show has gone on, it appears to me that Abby Lee Miller has gotten so much worse to the girl. She belittles them all the time and destroys their confidence whenever she can. Unless their name is Maddie or Mackenzie. It is disgusting and I don’t know how anyone can be OK with that being their perceived persona. I wouldn’t want my image to be that of an older woman who seems to enjoy screaming at and harassing little girls. Would you?
Another thing that drives me crazy about her, is she constantly tells these girls, who are not even teenagers, to stop crying. It is for their pillows at night. But when the press shows up at her door, while she’s at a competition with the girls, she starts to cry in front of them. What is good for the goose, I guess is not good for the gander.
The other thing I hate about the perception I have of her, it is OK for her to bully these pre-teens, but it is not OK for anyone else to bully her. The second anyone does, she calls the cops or authorities.
I don’t know why I still watch this show, but for some reason I do. If you are stronger than me, then I am telling you to stop watching it. Maybe if you did, she would stop treating the kids the way that she does for television. I worry about the impact her words will have on them as they grow up. We have all been scarred by a teacher, but for most of us it ends after a year. These girls have multiple years with her.
So once again, I beg you not to watch. Because if you don’t, then maybe Lifetime will be put it out of my misery.
Although, I have a feeling this season with them going to LA might change the show enough that people will tune out. At least I pray it does.
One last thing, I am so sick of her saying how she has made stars. Who? There were kids from my JHS that were part of an Oscar winning documentary about dance called He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing. And you know the guy who won Dancing with the Stars this season? Well, Alfonso Ribiero, also went to my JHS. So I think I went to the same school with bigger dancers than the ones she produced. I am sure if I did the research, I would find out that a few Broadway stars also went to my elementary or JHS. Not bragging, just proving a point. I am not putting down her past dancers, BTW.
I don’t think she made these girls stars, the show did. I mean do you really think that Maddie would’ve been in Sia’s video if it wasn’t for Dance Moms? I am sure if the show didn’t exist the singer would’ve found another dancer to have star in the video for Chandelier. Don’t you agree?
