Reality Round-Up: Shear Genius and The Rest of My Favorite Shows

April 30, 2007

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6

As we all know, this is the time of the season when things start to get really intense in reality land; the “Top Model” girls are off in some foreign land, the tribes have merged on “Survivor” and there’s no more non-elimination rounds on “The Amazing Race.” We’re going to hit them all but first let’s start with our fresh-faced newbie “Shear Genius.”

I decided early on in episode 3 that Tyson was going to be my back-up crush if Theodore became annoying and / or got voted off. This turned out to be a huge mistake because over the course of episode 3, my mild-mannered gay Tyson turns out to be neither mild-manner nor gay. He’s the new Matt from “Top Design” right down to the confession room cockiness.

The first challenge in the episode is to recreate the Sally Shag, a haircut invented by judge Sally Hershberger and made famous by Meg Ryan. Now, it’s a groovy look and we all remember it becoming popular but was it always called “the Sally Shag”? Or was it just called “the Shag” and Sally’s seizing this opportunity to do a little retroactive branding and remind the world that she pioneered the look with her own two hands? I think “the Sally Shag” is like the word “fetch” in “Mean Girls.”

Vernacularly speaking, it’s just not going to take.

You may have noticed that there’s lots of ‘inside baseball’-type shop talk on “Sheer Genius” where you’re like, ‘What are they talking about?’ I’m sure going in the producers worried that couch jockeys like myself would find this stuff alienating, but I dig it. I love hearing exchanges like this:

SALLY: First, I’m going to show you how to section the hair.

READ MORE > >