a quick break from actual TV viewing with Renzie Baluyut.

Spoiler Alert! If you're actually following Survivor: Gabon, and would rather not read anything on what happens on the show, or who got voted out, you might want to read something else- like my other featured TV eye candy on Too Much TV | Renzie on TV's Favorite TV Chicks.

Otherwise, hey- welcome aboard- read on!

I must admit- I've stopped following Survivor a long time ago. It was the hugest thing for me when it first came out, as the concept of reality shows were still pretty new at the time, and maybe it was interesting watching people eat pretty much anything to get just a little bit of protein.

My interest definitely waned right after Survivor: All Stars- which was, what? Season 7 or 8, I think? Still, Survivor continues to be one of CBS's strongest shows today, and they've even lined it up on Thursday nights along with CSI to go against NBC's comedy line-up, ABC's Grey's Anatomy, and The CW's teen-oriented programming.

Oh, and gratz to Jeff Probst for bagging an Emmy this year.

I'm not about to watch Survivor again, but I have been keeping tabs of what's going down online at least. And like any other red-blooded heterosexual male, I cheer for the chicks. So let's meet our four Survivors: Jessica, Kelly, Paloma and Michelle.

The Chicks of Survivor: Gabon

Jessica "Sugar" Kiper looks more like a 50's pin-up girl than an actual Survivor: Gabon contestant, at least in this press release photo. But in real life, she IS a pin-up model- working as a waitress in 50's-themed restaurants and taking on acting gigs in New York.

She's bubbly, spunky and flirty- but let's see how far she actually gets this season. Go, Sugar, go! Read the rest of her bio on the official Survivor: Gabon website.


Kelly Czarnecki might be one of the cutest on this season of Survivor, but she also looks like she can kick my ass anytime- because she's a kickboxer! Our one-time cheerleader is also into outdoorsy stuff (like camping and canoeing), yoga and fashion. In fact, she hopes to open her own clothing store someday.

Read up more on Kelly here on the Survivor: Gabon section of the CBS official website.

Paloma Soto-Castillo looks like a real nice girl, but our college student has a bit of an adventurous streak in her. According to her profile on the Survivor website, she just decided to drop everything one day and moved to Kenya all by herself- and actually lived with natives and wild animals for 3 months- with no friends, family or the trappings of real life.

So it seems she's probably really at home on Survivor. Then again, probably not- as her tribe members just voted her out this week in their first ever tribal council- seeing her as their weakest player in challenges.

Michelle Chase has this nice little girl-next-door vibe going on, if you ask me. But she's actually one tough chick- and not afraid to speak her mind. According to the CBS website, Michelle also runs triathlons, enjoys boxing, and has been supporting herself since she was 16.

In a landslide vote, however- on the very first episode of this season, Michelle Chase, the 24-year-old music assistant from Los Angeles, California was the first person to be voted out of Survivor: Gabon. One less reason for me to watch the show.

Check out more of Survivor: Gabon on it official website on CBS. Or you could read up on it more on TV.com. Pics are from TV.com.

As long as TV keeps coming up with delicious eye-candy, this blog's feature on "Favorite TV Chicks" will be on hand to get to know more about our fine female performers who make our TV shows a little bit more interesting. Only on "Too Much TV | Renzie on TV!"

Cheers, everyone!

I know the American Idol juggernaut just about got everybody hooked this season- now that it's down to David Archuleta versus David Cook for the finale.

My money's on Cook, but Archuleta does have a whole shitload of fans.

Alright, so I know enough about what's generally going down, but the truth is, I can't help but notice that, for the past several episodes, my enthusiasm for the show has noticeably waned.

I was trying to figure it out: was it possibly the lack of eye-candy for me? Hardly any chicks this season- at least not as compelling as when Katherine McPhee was around (sorry, just needed a reason to put her pic up on this blog :p). In fairness, Carly Smithson was the most fun to watch for this batch, so I know I really stopped watching the actual broadcasts after Broadway night and just relied on the internet for updates.

Was it because the weekly themes were sorta skewed towards a more mature audience? Alright, I dig Lennon/McCartney. Even the Andrew Lloyd Webber night was rather entertaining. But Dolly Parton night? Neil Diamond? I can only take so much Dolly or Diamond in one hour of TV viewing. Oh I didn't even bother watching Neil Diamond night. Where's the element of 'staying contemporary' Simon Cowell has been constantly crowing about?

While the show has inadvertently managed to keep itself interesting somehow- what with the Paula Abdul blunder a couple of weeks back (you can even catch a clip on YouTube if you missed it), or that debacle with Archuleta's dad on being such a stage parent (which you can read about here, here and here)- it doesn't seem to completely accomplish what the show set out to do: get my eyeballs locked on FOX two nights a week.

Luck of the draw, I suppose. Here's to hoping they get a more interesting set of contestants next year.

Cheers, everyone.

She's incredibly beautiful, totally accomplished, and brings an extra kind of hotness every week on Bravo's "Top Chef". Have you met Padma Lakshmi?

Alright, I admit, she's one of the main reasons why I watch "Top Chef". All shows should have hosts this gorgeous. But she's not just there for eye-candy. Not only is she a chef, but she's also a supermodel, actress (both in Hollywood AND Bollywood), Food Network personality, fashion icon, award-winning author and UN ambassador.

She already has two cookbooks to her credit: Easy Exotic- which covered her experiments on delicious low-fat recipes, and Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet- a collection of international recipes that are easy to prepare, yet elegant and memorable.

Other Interesting Things You Might Want To Know About Padma

• That scar on her right arm? She got it from an accident when she was 14. According to Wikipedia:
  

  The accident happened on a Sunday afternoon on her way back with her parents from a Hindu temple in Malibu. She remembers a loud bang, looking out the windshield and realized the family's red Mecury Sedan was airborne. Padma describes the event in the Vogue-April 2001 edition as "Flying in a car felt like an exhilarating hallucination, an unbelievable ride that oddly remains one of the most beautiful images in my memory." The car flew 40 feet down an embankment directly into a tree. The tree trunk fell directly on top of the car. She remained conscious, covered in glass, for the 40 minutes it took for the paramedics and firefighters to get through the traffic. They used the "jaws of life" to extract the family from the crumpled car. A helicopter landed in the middle of the highway to air lift her parents away while an ambulance carried Padma to the hospital. Fortunately, everyone survived. Her injuries included a fractured right hip and a shattered upper right arm which resulted in her famous 7" scar.

• Padma is of Indian-American descent. She was born in India (on 01 September 1970), but spent most of her teenage life in the United States.
• Padma Lakshmi was once married to Salman Rushdie. They divorced on July 2007, just a little after three years of marriage.
• She was named number 66 on AskMen.com's "The Top Most Desirable Women of 2008" list. Personally, I think she really could've ranked higher.
• "Top Chef" isn't her first TV show. She also hosted The Food Network's "Melting Pot: Padma's Passport", and the Discovery Channel's "Planet Food".
  

Welcome to my continuing coverage of the songs featured on American Idol Season 7. No blow-by-blow reportage, no thoughts about the show (at least not at this point), just the songs performed by our Top 20 contestants.

We're doing the 70's this week, and we just covered the dudes' songs earlier on. Now we have the songlist for the chicks' performances.


List of Songs Sung By The Contestants
The Chicks of the Top 20 Sing the 70's!
American Idol Season 7

Carly Smithson - Heart "Crazy On You"
Syesha Mercado - Billy Paul "Me and Mrs. Jones"
Brooke White - Carly Simon "You're So Vain"
Ramiele Malubay - Thelma Houston "Don't Leave Me This Way"
Kristy Lee Cook - Linda Ronstadt "You're No Good"

Amanda Overmyer - Kansas "Carry On Wayward Son"
Alaina Whitaker - Olivia Newton-John "Hopelessly Devoted To You"
Alexandrea Lushington - Chicago "If You Leave Me Now"
Kady Malloy - Heart "Magic Man"
Asia'h Epperson - Eric Carmen "All By Myself"


Don't forget to watch the results show- we see ours in the Philippines on Star World. Go right ahead and check out the official FOX website here, for exclusive vids, photos, blogs and a chance to interact with fellow AI fans!

4 more episodes 'til we get our Top 12- come back next week for the list of songs performed then!

Cheers, everyone!

This is my continuing coverage on the featured music on American Idol season 7. Just to make it clear, I'm not doing a blow-by-blow or an episode guide: that's the reason why we all watch it live :). However, I aim to do a public service by helping out fellow fans with the song titles and artists featured, as performed by our contestants.

That being said, we're now down to our Top 20. Our theme for this week: the 70's. And here are the songs from our remaining 10 dudes, on American Idol episode aired 26 February 2008.

List of Songs Sung By The Contestants
The Dudes of the Top 20 Sing the 70's!
American Idol Season 7

Michael Johns - Fleetwood Mac "Go Your Own Way"
Jason Castro - Andy Gibb "I Just Want To Be Your Everything"
Luke Menard - Queen "Killer Queen"
Robbie Carrico - Foreigner "Hot Blooded"
Danny Noriega - The Carpenters "Superstar"

David Hernandez - The Temptations "Papa Was a Rolling Stone"
Jason Yeager - The Doobie Brothers "Long Train Runnin'"
Chikezie Eze - Donny Hathaway "I Believe To My Soul"
David Cook - Free "All Right Now"
David Archuleta - John Lennon "Imagine"


The chicks' song choices coming up next. More American Idol Music comin' your way as Season 7 continues. Go right ahead and check out the official FOX website here, for exclusive vids, photos, blogs and a chance to interact with fellow AI fans! Here's looking forward to some interesting performances next week.

Cheers, everyone!

This is my continuing coverage of the music featured on American Idol Season 7. This week, we see our Top 24 in action belting out some jams from the '60's.

We already featured the dudes' song choices earlier on, so now we cover the chicks' musical performances.

So here's the playlist from American Idol Season 7, episode aired 20 February 2008!


List of Songs Sung By The Contestants
The Chicks of the Top 24 Sing!
American Idol Season 7

Kristy Lee Cook - Fontella Bass "Rescue Me"
Joanne Borgella - Burt Bacharach "Say A Little Prayer For You"
Alaina Whittaker - Spiral Starecase "More Today Than Yesterday"

Amanda Overmyer - Van Morrison "Baby Please Don't Go"
Amy Davis - Connie Francis "Where The Boys Are"
Brooke White - The Turtles "Happy Together"

Alexandrea Lushington - Blood, Sweat & Tears "Spinning Wheel"
Kady Malloy - The Mindbenders "A Groovy Kind Of Love"
Asia'h Epperson - Janis Joplin "Piece Of My Heart"

Ramiele Malubay - Dusty Springfield "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me"
Syesha Mercado - The Nashville Teens "Tobacco Road"
Carly Smithson - Tony Bennett "The Shadow of Your Smile"


More American Idol Music comin' your way as Season 7 continues. Go right ahead and check out the official FOX website here, for exclusive vids, photos, blogs and a chance to interact with fellow AI fans! Here's looking forward to some interesting performances next week.

Cheers, everyone!

Hello everyone.

I decided to provide you all a list of all the songs sung on the Tuesday & Wednesday shows (Wednesday and Thursday in the Philippines). To be honest I don't have a favorite just yet. And even if I did, it would usually be a chick :).

So, here's the tune-age from the episode of American Idol Season 7 that aired last 19 February 2008. The week's theme: the sixties!

List of Songs Sung By The Contestants:
The Dudes of the Top 24 Sing!
American Idol Season 7

David Hernandez - Wilson Pickett "In the Midnight Hour"
Chikezie Ezie - Spiral Staircase "More Today Than Yesterday"
David Cook - The Turtles "Happy Together"

Jason Yeager - Andy Williams "Moon River"
Robbie Carrico - Three Dog Night "One"
David Archuleta - The Miracles "Shop Around"

Danny Noriega - Elvis Presley "Jailhouse Rock"
Luke Menard - Nilsson "Everybody's Talkin'"
Colton Berry - Elvis Presley - "Suspicious Minds"

Garrett Haley - Neil Sedaka - "Breakin' up is Hard to Do"
Jason Castro - Lovin' Spoonful - "Daydream"
Michael Johns - The Doors - "Light My Fire"


More American Idol Music comin' your way as Season 7 continues. The chicks' 60's songs coming up. Go right ahead and check out the official FOX website here, for exclusive vids, photos, blogs and a chance to interact with fellow AI fans!

Cheers, everyone!

Popular media has, for the most part, managed to portray supermodels as anorexic drama queens and dim-witted divas, and for some reason we've lapped that up that image completely.

While it is true that there might be those in the fashion industry that might be a little in the way of attention-hungry, unreasonable or just in need of a good cheeseburger, such isn't the case at all for my girl, Heidi Klum.

In fact, she's the ultimate supermodel if you ask me: she's beautiful, and has a body that's still as marketable as ever. But more importantly, Heidi's been able to make good use of her popularity and success to pursue other interests both inside and out of her immediate comfort zone.

Plus, she's sharp, has a fun personality, and an all-around media darling. Seriously, can you really say anything bad about Heidi Klum?

Heidi Klum, Supermodel.

In 1991, an eighteen-year-old Heidi Klum entered a modeling contest after some prodding by her friend. She did win the contest, voted the winner out of 25,000 other hopefuls, and bagging a contract worth about US$300,000.

Since then, Heidi's been on the cover of just about every fashion magazine- but it was her work for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and for Victoria Secret that catapulted her into fame.

Heidi's also been a spokesmodel for several well-known brands, like Liz Claiborne, H&M, Braun, Volkswagen, Jordache and McDonalds, and even made appearances in TV shows and movies- "Sex and the City", "How I Met Your Mother", The Devil Wears Prada, Ella Enchanted and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

Project Runway

In December 2004, Heidi Klum signed up as host, judge and executive producer of the reality show "Project Runway". The show came out on the Bravo cable TV channel. That's her with the Season 1 contestants in the picture to the left.

In "Project Runway", fashion designers compete for the chance to show their work at New York Fashion Week and receive money to launch their own fashion line, among other prizes.

Heidi has received an Emmy nomination for the show for each of the first three seasons. In 2008, Project Runway and Heidi Klum received a Peabody Award, the first time a reality show had won the award, according to Heidi's entry on Wikipedia.

Heidi Klum Now

As we know, Heidi's happily married to musician Seal, with two boys Henry Günther Ademola Dashtu Samuel (who's turning 3 in September) and Johan Riley Fyodor Taiwo Samuel (who's having his second birthday on November). Heidi also has Helene "Leni" Klum, who's turning 4 this May.

Heidi's still rather active in the fashion industry, designing her own clothing lines (and her own line of jewelry, even) as well as designing for others (Birkenstock, Mouawad, Victoria Secret). She also produced two fragrances, "Heidi Klum" and "Me".

Besides "Project Runway", she's also working on "Germany's Next Top Model", and is trying out her hand at voicing for video games, sculpture and paintings, even dabbling into pop music.

For more of Heidi, you can check out her official website, HeidiKlum.com. You can also read more about her on her IMDb profile here, or her Wikipedia entry here.

As long as TV keeps coming up with delicious eye-candy, this blog's feature on "Favorite TV Chicks" will be on hand to get to know more about our fine female performers who make our TV shows a little bit more interesting. Only on "Too Much TV: Renzie on TV!"

Cheers, everyone!

"Renzie on TV" sends out its congratulations to Heroes, for bagging this year's most coveted award on TV.com's Best of 2007!

The super-powered NBC drama rounded up 52% of the more than 10 million votes from TV.com fans, beating out Editors' Choice Lost, which only got around 2% of the vote.

Heroes also won over House (which got 4 million + votes), Friday Night Lights (54,000+ votes), Family Guy (24,000+ votes) and The Sopranos (16,000+ votes).

Here are the other winners of TV.com's Best of 2007:

• Best New Fall Show: Pushing Daisies (Editors' Choice), beating out Aliens in America, Bionic Woman, Californication, Kid Nation and Reaper.

• Best In Genre: Drama - Heroes FTW, over House, Lost (Editors' Choice), Dexter, Grey's Anatomy and Damages.

• Best In Genre: Comedy - Scrubs laughs off the competition, including Editors' Choice Weeds. Also tickling fans' funnybones last year are The Office, My Name is Earl, 30 Rock and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

• Best In Genre: Action/Adventure - 24 (Editors' Choice) runs off with The Best of 2007 Award, leaving CSI: Las Vegas, NCIS, Prison Break, Numb3rs and CSI: New York in the dust.

• Best In Genre: Animation - Fans voted Avatar: The Last Airbender as the year's best cartoon, while the editors were fans of Southpark. Other must-see cartoons for the year include Metalocalypse, The Simpsons, Family Guy and Frisky Dingo.

• Best In Genre: Reality - Editors and fans agree on this one- Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor was this year's best reality show. Also making the cut were America's Next Top Model, Survivor, The Hills, Kid Nation and Dancing With The Stars.

• Best In Genre: Sci Fi - Editors were gunning for Battlestar Galactica, but fans handed the award to Supernatural. Geeks also loved The 4400, Stargate Atlantis, Eureka and Kyle XY.

• Best of The Worst: The dubious honor goes to According to Jim, though editors thought it was going to be Viva Laughlin. Other bad shows that made the list were Big Shots, Hey Paula, 'Til Death and Nashville.

• Best Guilty Pleasure: Admit it, you watch Gossip Girl too- this year's Best Guilty Pleasure. The editors admitted to Cavemen as their go-to guilty pleasure. Rounding out the competish were A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, American Idol, The Girls Next Door and Jail.
• Hottest Actor: Surprise, surprise- it goes to Tahmoh Penikett (who plays Helo) of Battlestar Galactica. Editors thought it would be Milo Ventimiglia (of Heroes). Also nominated were Dominic Purcell of Prison Break, Zach Levi of Chuck, Sendhil Ramamurthy also of Heroes and Taye Diggs of Private Practice.

• Hottest Actress: Editors had their eyes on newcomer Sarah Shahi of Life, but Grace Park of Battlestar Galactica is this year's hottest hottie! Other babes in the running were Hayden Panettierre of Heroes, Mary-Louise Parker of Weeds, Laura Vandervoort of Smallville and Khandi Alexander of CSI: Miami.

• Best Episode: According to the fans, it was the series premiere of Pushing Daisies - "Pie-Lette". Editors put their money on Lost's "Looking Through The Looking Glass". Other contenders were Damages' "Because I Know Patty", Family Guy's "Blue Harvest", the unaired pilot of Babylon Fields, and The Sopranos' "Made In America"

• Best in DVD: Fans loved The Twilight Zone: The Complete Set with 28 DVDs! Editors were rooting for BBC's Planet Earth: The Complete Collection. Also in the running were Battlestar Galactica: Season 1, The Colbert Report: Best of The Colbert Report, the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Collection and the Family Guy Freakin' Party Pack.

• Best News Story: Fans Bring Back Jericho; CBS Caves- have you heard that one? Editors thought that The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Bomb Scare would bag the award. The Jericho story also beat out the stories on The WGA Strike, The CW dropping Veronica Mars, Lost Ends in 2010, and Dr. Burke Discharged from Grey's Anatomy.

I was able to catch the 2-hour season premiere of American Idol on Star World, even after I came home from a dinner date. For the most part, I'm really just curious what this season has to offer. It's really more of a guilty pleasure, I suppose. There were already a couple of times when I swore off American Idol, only to get hooked on it again.

As you might probably expect, you'll have yourself a few good singers, some human interest story-pieces that tug at your heart-strings, but also some very interesting characters.

Sometimes you get all three- easily one of my favorites for American Idol season 7 is Kristy Lee Cook.

Did you catch her bio? She wrestles and trains for cage-fighting- which means she can literally kick my ass (or anybody else's for that matter). She lives in a log cabin surrounded by pine trees and raises horses in here spare time. She's darned cute. And she sings well. Well enough, at the very least, to move to the Hollywood round.

A quick Google search has brought me to an old website that was promoting her CD back in 2005. Interesting. It would be nice to hear (and see!) some more of her.

Here's something we got from that old website, CDBaby.com...

Kristy's music idols are Martina, Faith and Shania (do we really need last names). She also loves the music of Garth Brooks and Gary Allen. Kristy has her own unique sound and style, which will be easily recognizable.

At 5'8", Kristy Lee looks like a blonde, blue-eyed Brook Shields, has an incredible voice and is the wholesome, All-American 'girl next door'. The entertainment world is in for a treat! Here's the REAL American Idol!!!