Shawntel Newton's Predictions for The Bachelor Winner

Photo by ABC/Rick Rowell

In last week's episode of The Bachelor mortician Shawntel Newton was sent packing after her hometown date with Brad Womack. Shawntel felt compelled to "lay all the cards on the table." But "the table" was an embalming one and she decided to lay Brad there as well. She brought him to her morgue and showed him how the process works, just for fun. Viewers knew it was the beginning of the end. The final nail in the coffin came when Shawntel dropped the bomb on her dad, that if she married Brad she would not be taking over the family funeral home business as she had promised. When Brad realized he was breaking up the family, he cut Shawntel lose.

We spoke with the ousted bachelorette in a recent conference call interview about her predictions for who she thinks Brad will choose, if she has any regrets and her life after The Bachelor.

The funeral director from Chico, California, divulged that during the last rose ceremony she was completely taken by surprise, "I was really shocked because when he called up Ashley [Herbert]… I personally had thought she was going home. And I thought I was going to be the one staying… I knew that she hadn't told him that she was falling in love with him and I had. And I was just like, 'OK he's letting a girl go that has put herself out there and has really expressed that she's in love and willing to leave her life here in Chico and go to Austin, when you have another girl that hasn't.'"

But she has no regrets opening herself up to Brad in that way. She noted, "It was already an uncomfortable situation telling him, that I was not only falling in love but then at the end after he met my family that I'm in love, because I know that he can't say that back to me… But I put myself out there and I said, 'You know what, I want you to know this is how I'm feeling.' And that's who I am.' I'm very comfortable with my feelings and telling people how I feel. And I wanted him to know."

Yet despite her vulnerability, Brad still let her go leaving three women behind — Emily Maynard, Chantal O'Brien and Ashley Hebert. Shawntel has a strong feeling about who Brad will choose stating emphatically, "My personal opinion is he is in love with Emily. And I think he has been for a while."

She continued, "I ignored that when I was with him. There was a rose ceremony where we were all sitting down and he asked Emily to step aside with this beautiful basket of wine and cheese. And it was hurtful… And I even said, 'Are you ready to go get married now?'… I think Emily's everything he wants. She has a child and I think he wants to be the father to her child.  And she's wanting to get married and have more kids. And he loves that and wants that."

Although she did suggest, Brad has an uphill battle if he chooses her. "Emily has a lot of strengths. She's a strong woman for this tragic incident that happened in her life with her fianceé at the time… And when she would talk about that, sometimes I would be like, 'My goodness this is the love of her life and that will be with her for the rest of her life.' And Brad even said this to her, 'That's hard to live up to. You've had your love of your life who, sadly, passed away. And to replace that, I don't think will ever happen.' And so that, for Brad, is probably a scary thing."

Still Shawntel doesn’t think that will prevent Brad from choosing Emily. She also described the reasons why the other two finalists are not right for The Bachelor, "For Chantal her emotions are getting to her. They have been on the show. But [with] the situations we're put in, it's so hard not to. Unfortunately, I think they've gotten to her. But she's an amazing… girl that I got really close to on the show. And she cares for Brad so much and she was the first one to tell Brad, 'I love you. And I'm here for you and I already have these feelings.' And I think Brad was attracted to that, her honesty with him."

And despite that fact that she thought Ashley is "fun and spunky and makes anyone feel young and lively," Shawntel claimed that Ashley was too needy. "She would constantly say to him, 'I need that reassurance. I need that, I need.' OK well we all want that. Every single girl here wants that reassurance. And he knows that. And you keep using this word in these situations we're put in, but it's the truth. These are very abnormal situations. But she would constantly say 'Where's my reassurance?'"

Shawntel actually seemed like the one woman in the house who needed the least reassurance. Perhaps that was because she had never seen an episode of The Bachelor before she signed up to appear on it. Her younger sisters applied for her and she went in blind. She acknowledged, "For the most part I think it was better that I had no expectations going into this. A lot of the girls were like, 'We know when the date card comes.' And I was like, 'I don't even know what a date card is.'  And I think it was better that way to have no expectations on the show and to just go with it."

And now that she's had The Bachelor experience, she said she would consider being The Bachelorette if asked. She commented, "I think to be The Bachelor or The Bachelorette you really have to be a strong emotional person and as we can see Brad was. This was his second go around and you are talking a lot. You’re doing a lot of interviews. You’re up late and you need to be able to handle that and I am one that could do that."

She said there is one quality needed to be The Bachelor or Bachelorette, "Being emotionally stable because when you’re The Bachelor, Bachelorette you have a lot on your plate. And I think I could handle [that] because sometimes I think oh, 'My gosh, this would be really hard and gosh it would be just a lot.' But I think I could emotionally handle it and still show emotion obviously and definitely be there to fall in love with someone that knows that I’m a funeral director and hopefully they’re comfortable with that."

Shawntel discovered some of her own skills that she used to go far on The Bachelor and that would come in handy on The Bachelorette, "When I went on to The Bachelor I was already a pretty strong person. Being a funeral director it helps with that because I have to control my emotions when I’m a funeral director. I have to professionally separate myself from these families… And I did really well at doing that. As I watched myself… I’m very proud of myself and how I handled these weird situations."

She also remarked, "I’m prepared now to be The Bachelorette, because of these interviews, talking a lot with different people. And of course it’d be a different situation being The Bachelorette because now you’ve got these 25 or 30 guys that you’re individually talking to... But you’ve been prepared now to do that."

She pointed out one experience Brad was lacking in his Bachelor journey that she could bring to the show, "He wasn’t a contestant [on] The Bachelorette at all. He was just a Bachelor. So a lot of the girls would say to him, 'You don’t really know how we’re feeling in this situation.' And that was something that he didn’t really understand… we’re watching you go on these other dates with other people and we’re telling you that we’re falling in love and he couldn’t compare to that. He couldn’t say I know how that feels."

And she did have some advice for other women considering going on the series, "It's something that you really need to think about because it's a really true test of your character. That's what I learned from myself, coming back from the show… You're secluded from your family and your friends and you really only have yourself to… And so it's not that I wouldn’t recommend it, but it's something that people need to think about and realize, 'Okay, these situations I'm going to be put in are not normal. And am I going to be able to handle that or not with cameras in my face?"

Shawntel carried herself well and even though she was not chosen in the end, she walked away from her time with Brad with a better idea of what she wants in a her next boyfriend. "Here is this wonderful independent man, which I was very attracted to… He’s just a southern gentleman. Not that I have to marry someone from Texas, but his manners were something I wasn’t used to. And I just really felt like a woman when I was with him. And he was funny and yet he was very serious as well. And he didn’t look at my job like it was too weird… He wanted to know more and so he’s really set my standards as far the next guy I’m with."

She reflected that she is ready to move on, "I compare this a lot to someone who has had a death and has lost a loved one because we go through the same stages as you do with a death. So with me losing Brad I allowed myself to get angry, to start bargaining and wonder, ‘gosh could I have done something different,' almost in denial maybe. And I allowed myself to go through these different stages of grief in a healthy way."

She professed, "I'm not in love with him anymore. And like I said in the limo… I wish Brad the happiest. I thought he was just an amazing person. And all I want for him is to be happy. And I think he got really lucky with the girls he had to choose from because he had some really great girls there."

Find out who Brad chooses on The Bachelor on Monday nights at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on ABC.

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Blair Underwood and Zeljko Ivanek Talk About The Event

Photo by Jordin Althaus/NBC 

Fans of The Event will be happy to hear the series is returning next Monday, March 7, after a three-month hiatus. We originally tuned into the show because we were fans of Jason Ritter (have we not mentioned our Joan of Arcadia obsession?). The actor plays a man looking for his kidnapped fiancée. Although the flashbacks and time changes were a bit difficult to follow initially, we stuck with it and discovered that the various subplots run deep into a government conspiracy to hide a 60-year-old group of alien detainees. The twists and turns reminded us of what we liked about Lost without all the unanswered questions, since the producers are determined to not leave fans hanging too long.

At the center of the alien cover-up sits Elias Martinez, the President of the U.S., played by Blair Underwood, and Blake Sterling, the Director of National Intelligence (Zeljko Ivanek). We spoke with the two men recently about what real life politicians influenced their roles, the challenges in playing the parts and how their characters have evolved over time.

Playing the President can be difficult for an actor because they are often compared to real life counterparts. Blair was quick to point out, "I want to make sure I always say that, of course, I’m not playing the current President... But you can’t help but be aware of, and possibly influenced by, the fact that you have a youthful, family oriented, newly elected president... But also I’ve gotten… so much more interested in watching historical… documentaries. I was watching one on President Reagan last night because now it’s a whole different perspective on that life lived inside the walls of that White House and behind that Oval Office desk."

He said he does use this material for reference when developing the character of Elias Martinez. "I find myself pulling different pieces here and there. And there’s always the person that the President is and then there’s how the President is perceived. And it does influence how you portray a character… One of the things I wanted to be sure to do, or hopefully will do more of, is show his patriotic side — how much he loved this country. And I think sometimes you have to state that. You assume if someone’s the President that he is that and feels that way, but sometimes it’s important to say."

Zeljko also looked to actual politicians for inspiration, acknowledging, "I read the first script and started seeing what this world was like. There was some obvious real world models to look to, like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld… Just before we started the pilot I happened to read a book called The One Percent Doctrine about politics within the Bush Administration following 9/11. And a good deal of it is about Dick Cheney saying if there’s a 1% chance of something happening, then you are justified in basically taking all measures to prevent that from happening if it’s a threat to you. So that was very useful and the… bureaucratic politics that go along with that were all useful information going in."

But he conceded, "At some point, the real story and the show takes over and the real relationships take over and you leave all the rest of that behind, but suddenly you’re dealing with a very, very specific new set of circumstances. So it was certainly an inspiration looking to real life characters like that, but at some point you’re in the world of the show and that takes over."

Underwood related that he learned one important lesson about the Commanders in Chief from his historical research, "They’re all so different. Their personalities and their backgrounds make them all so uniquely different. So that was important to understand. People talk about being presidential. What is presidential? And to me it’s someone who can engender trust and people will believe in him to follow his gut and his instincts to lead the country in the right direction, whatever that means. That’s different for everybody. But you have to believe in that person. Beyond that, it’s trying to be as truthful and as honest and sincere as possible to do whatever you feel is the best way to lead a country."

And playing politicians has given both men a new perspective on government. Zeljko commented, "Watching what just happened in Egypt… Just that shear momentum of events coming at you and finding yourself in the middle of things that are just moving way faster than the human mind can really process. I’m not comparing this [series] to reality, but it’s certainly within the world of the show. We’re having to constantly reassess what’s going on and within every episode… And the sensation of the pressure and this caldron that they’re all in is really, really vivid to me."

Blair agreed, "It makes me think not only of Egypt but Iran last year and everything that’s always going on in the world’s stage... Just the sheer weight and gravity of the office and the responsibility of the President of the United States, how daunting that must be to try to sift through that and try to stay one step ahead of what’s really going on. So it’s definitely given me more of a keen awareness, if nothing else, and interest in the world of politics and foreign affairs."

But aside from the pressure of playing a politician, there are other challenges that come along with the roles on The Event. Zeljko remarked, "What I always liked from the beginning of the show was just how strong these characters were and how many different worlds you were following. And at the same time there’s this overwhelming story ark going on."

But he did admit is can be difficult as an actor looking to develop his character, "Sometimes you feel everyone’s needed to push the plot along and then [other times] you want to raise your hand, it’s like, 'Yes, but what’s going on inside of me at this moment?' And you don’t always get to play that out fully. Luckily there’s plenty of moments and plenty of scenes where the reverberations among the characters, and how they are each individually struggling with these things, are played out. But there’s also a good deal of time where we just are looking after this juggernaut of a story that everybody is dealing with as best they can and sometimes that just has to take precedence."

Blair also revealed a predicament with his role, "It seems like a very simple thing but it’s to not get caught in the trap of being presidential in playing this particular character. And it can be a trap. When you start to play for results and just make him as human as possible. It’s a subtle nuance and it’s all in how you approach it, but it can be a trap for an actor. The same way an actor tries to be intelligent or smart… it’s all playing for results and not doing that because everybody has their idea and notion in their own heads and minds what a president should be."

And as is typical of a president, President Martinez began the series sticking to his convictions, but through the course of the season, extraordinary circumstances have found him straddling the line of right and wrong. But Blair contended the president will not lose his values as the aliens become more dangerous. He replied, "I hope not. I can say we haven’t yet but I mean he’s tested… The story’s accelerated so fast and it makes us all question who we are. In many ways the overriding and undercurrent of the show is the idea of identity. Who are we and who are we in certain circumstances and as circumstances keep shifting and changing and evolving… He hasn’t lost himself… He’s rethought a lot of his values but he has not shifted as of yet; not to say that he won’t."

Zeljko added, "I think for him and for Sterling, and for a lot of characters, that people have found themselves doing things they never thought they would do. Whether that’s changing your values or just having your values confronted with reality. I’m not sure which it is, but certainly everybody has found themselves caught short in ways that they never anticipated and behaving in ways that they would not have predicted for themselves."

In the upcoming mid-season premiere episode Zeljko disclosed that there is a moment where Sterling is confronted with this very idea of shifting values. He noted, "[It] ends with a real moment of having to reassess his view of this whole situation and his view of the aliens and it just comes out of the events that happen that lead him to that. It suddenly put him in a place that… you never expect him to be in and gives him a shift in perspective. We’ll see if it lasts and how circumstances affect it but there’s a real moment of clarity for Sterling that he didn’t see coming."

It is this constant changing of perspective that makes playing the character interesting for Zeljko. He stated, "The assumption was, because I was playing this part, automatically he must be the bad guy in all of this. And I’ve been happy to find out that there are worse guys lurking in this administration in this world. What I’ve liked is that things really change and shift gears as the season has gone on and there have been big changes and shifts in the relationship between Blake and the President, which has been really fun to work on as well. As things happen, they each change their positions and find themselves making the opposite arguments at each other than where they started. So I think I am anybody who reaches a position like the one I’m supposed to be holding, I’m sure has a lot to answer for but, at the same time, he’s clearly a patriot and clearly is trying to save the world. And then you get into the nitty-gritty of what is he willing to do to do that. And that’s the crux for a lot of the characters is how far are you willing to go to protect the things you think need protecting? And we’re constantly challenged as the storyline ratchets up the stakes."

Zeljko also hinted at big changes to come for the president, "Just stay tuned because there’s some major, major challenges coming at him and I think you may find how he reacts to them is not what you might have expected."

To see the twists and turns for yourself tune in to the second half of season one of The Event for a two hour episode on March 7 at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on NBC.

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Coca-Cola Formula – Is it the Real Thing?

This one has become a matter of he said, they said. This American Life’s host Ira Glass reported last week that he had uncovered Coca-Cola’s secret formula. Spokespeople for the soda company insist that the recipe is still secure, tucked away in a bank vault in Atlanta and known only to two people on the planet as has been the case for decades.

Most importantly, This American Life believes they’ve discovered the details of 7X, Coke’s key mystery ingredient in a 1979 newspaper article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the cola company’s hometown rag. A photo accompanying the article allegedly shows the notes of a buddy of pharmacist John Pemberton. That would make sense because fizzy drinks like Coca-Cola were sold at fountains in drugstores back in the day.

If you want to whip up a batch for yourself, you can get the recipe at the This American Life site. And if you believe it’s the real thing, check back in and let us know.

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This Week's Inspirational Pop Culture Moments

Photo by Michael Becker/FOX

A reality judge opens her heart, a TV icon is honored by the Queen and a news anchor shares extraordinary advice. Here are this week's most inspirational pop culture moments.

American Idol: The Reality Competition Show with a Heart

Last night proved once and for all that this is not your big sister’s American Idol any more. Where once Simon Cowell sat and snarled at young, singing hopefuls and Paula Abdul tossed in a kooky comment, now sits a trio of compassionate judges.

When producers announced that Stephen Tyler and Jennifer Lopez would be the latest panel on AI alongside veteran Randy Jackson, everyone thought the show had jumped the shark and was on its last legs. Last night proved that the signing competition’s heart is still beating strong.

The pivotal moment came when it was time to tell contestant Chris Medina whether or not he’d made the final 24. The 26-year-old Illinois barista won over the trio and the audience during his audition for the show. His story was an ultimate Idol tearjerker. Just two weeks before his wedding to Juliana Ramos, she got in a car accident and suffered brain damage. He has remained by her side and even brought her along to meet Tyler, Lopez and Jackson.

On Wednesday’s show, Lopez was given the unfortunate task of telling Medina that his journey was to end that night. He was gracious in the face of the bad news. She broke down in tears, saying, “I just don’t want to tell him no… I guess I just don’t feel like I told him in the right way.” Her co-stars, who were equally moved, comforted her and reassured her that she handled it perfectly.

While J-Lo wept, Medina left with a smile on his face saying, “I’m gonna go home and keep writing music… take care of my fiancée and make a miracle happen.”

For the rest of our inspirational pop culture moments visit Beliefnet Idol Chatter.

Support the Eight Track Museum

 

CD’s are on the verge of becoming just another obsolete music format as MP3’s take over the world. And yet vinyl and even cassettes are making a comeback with college kids and hipsters everywhere. So can a resurgence of the eight track be far behind? Well, yes, that seems very unlikely. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people out there who miss the big clunky plastic cartridges that ca-chunked in the middle of your favorite songs.

Among our favorite eight tracks from our childhood were Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops Play The Beatles and the soundtracks to The Sting and A Chorus Line. The ‘70s at their finest. And we’re not the only ones who remember the format fondly. Dallas local James "Bucks" Burnett digs eight tracks so much, has even opened a museum in their honor. The grand opening occurred on February 14 and included a singing party with the Tom Tom Club.

If you’re sad you can’t stop by the museum sometime soon, don’t sweat it. You can subscribe to the Eight Track Museum newsletter for free. Just email your name, email address, city and state to bucks1414@mac.com. Or if you think your passion for the format is going to linger, become a lifetime member for just $30.

And needless to say, if you clean out your father’s attic and stumble upon a box of rare specimens, do music lovers and Bucks a favor and send them off to the museum at 3100 Main Street #414, Dallas, Texas, 75226. They don’t just want your eight tracks — posters, albums, music magazines are all of interest to them. Your donations won’t be tax deductible because ETM is not yet registered as a charity, but do it for the good of posterity.

Visit the Eight Track Museum at 2630 E. Commerce in Dallas, Texas, read more about Burnett’s mission in this Wall Street Journal interview and check out Bucks’ eight track tour in the video below.

  

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Frank Nicotero is 'The Yahoo! Guy' from 'PiNT'

Frank Nicotero, more commonly known as "the Yahoo! guy," is the host of the site's daily Internet show Primetime in No Time or PiNT for short. Any day now, the series will reach a big web milestone — half a billion streams, making it the most popular daily show on the Internet.

To celebrate Yahoo! is bringing in three guest co-hosts to work with Frank — Soleil Moon Frye, Michelle Phan and DeStorm Power, who all have pretty strong web followings of their own. And Yahoo! is holding a contest for fans giving one lucky winner a trip to LA to see their favorite co-host tape an episode of PiNT. Check out Yahoo!'s Facebook page for details.

It seems like Frank deserves a little break. In a recent exclusive phone interview he told us that in the last three years, he has taped 744 episodes of the web series... and counting. And while he's looking forward to working with the three upcoming guests, he also has a few dream co-hosts in mind. "Anyone from Modern Family would be amazing. If we could have anyone come in and do coverage on their own show like Ty Burrell or Julie Bowen or Ed O'Neill. Steve Carrell would be amazing. I'd love to have come in."

He continued, "Anybody who's a regular on those shows that we cover. American Idol, if Ryan Seacrest ever came in, because I always give him a hard time when he makes mistakes and I tease him a lot so that would be pretty incredible."

When the series first started Frank watched all the TV shows himself and penned every script. Eventually they hired writers to lighten his load. He explained that now he typically covers the lead story, the big show of the night like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, while the staff covers the B and C stories.

But with the glut of programming on TV these days, "PiNT" tends to stick with the obvious big shows. Frank revealed, "The live stuff is always best for us. Award shows are always huge for us. Because who has three, three and half hours, when you have kids and you're working and you've got to get up early, who has three hours to watch the entire Grammy show, but we're going to boil it down in about two minutes for you. The big shows. The live shows. 'American Idol's' obviously. Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor. The reality stuff where the shocking moments happen are huge for us.

The PiNT host did confess that it's sometimes difficult to choose what shows to pay attention to, "I've flipped through all the cupcake shows and cake shows but there's just so much out there now it's incredible. We try to do our best job in three or four minutes a day, but I still get emails from people saying, 'You didn't cover Chuck' or 'There was such a great moment last night on How I Met Your Mother but we can't cover them all. We try."

And aside from PiNT Frank pops up other places. Fans of One Tree Hill might recognize him from a few recent guest appearances. He explained, "Two of my friends are actually producers on the show... and they wrote me into a script... so they sent me the script and the description of the character was 'annoying Internet guy.' I said, "If you guys wrote this with me in mind why couldn't you just use my name?' And they were like, 'We just wanted annoying Internet guy.' So I've been on two or three episodes of that. So it's always kind of cool."

Given how much television Nicotero watches, we had to find out what his favorite shows are. As far as scripted series, he replied, "As a comic the sitcoms are still my favorites. I think Family Guy is still awesome and The Simpsons I've been a fan for 20 years. Modern Family I think is fantastic and I think 30 Rock and The Office are amazing.

But he also acknowledged, "But I get into American Idol like everyone. Dancing with the Stars is never a show I watched on my own until I got this job. But I get sucked into the story line and enjoy watching the performances and find myself critiquing dance now which I never thought would happen. But there's a million dance shows on TV. So I've become a connoisseur of all reality TV as well."

He also confessed to having a few TV guilty pleasure, "My wife watches the Real Housewives shows and I fought those but The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills I watched almost every episode with her. And I don't know that you can get more guiltier than The Jersey Shore. I said I wasn't going to watch and then they just kept getting worse and worse and sucking me in. So, I'd say The Jersey Shore."

He also had a lot to say about Intervention, asking, "Does that qualify as a guilty pleasure? I'm amazed every week that these people don't realize they're on Intervention. I'm like, 'You people do drugs 24/7 and the only thing on TV late at night is Intervention. How are you not stumbling across that on TV to know that that's probably the fake documentary they are calling you about?"

And in talking to Frank, we may have found our newest guilty pleasure. Frank's latest direct to video movie The Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crunch. Sounds like a must-see to the Passionistas. Checking Netflix now.

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The Community Cast Doesn’t Always Get the Jokes

Photo by Harper Smith/NBC

In two seasons Community has built a loyal following of pop culture aficionados who play along each week trying to decipher to references and meta-humor buried in every episode. Oftentimes the iconic imagery is pulled from movies and TV shows made before some of the stars of the show were even born. In a recent conference call interview actors Danny Pudi (who plays Abed) and Alison Brie (who plays Annie) discussed being too young to get some of the jokes, who gets the most laughs on set and how the series has evolved.

Alison recalled an episode they shot this week that she and Danny did not understand the reference. But they turned to cast mate Gillian Jacobs (Britta) who got the joke and explained it. Alison noted, "There’s always someone who’s going to know. And then there’s this little thing called Google. So I think we have some help all around." Then she confessed, "I don’t think any of us every look to Dan and ask. We don’t want him to know that we don’t know."

Danny commented, "The good thing is that we have such a great collective ensemble. Someone’s always around who probably has an idea of what’s going on. So it’s just a matter of turning your head enough times and eventually someone will tell you what you’re talking about."

The members of ensemble also keep each other laughing. Alison and Danny agreed that Ken Jeong (Senor Chang) would take up the most space on a blooper reel if one were made. Danny divulged, "He makes himself laugh more… Consistently he'll be doing something… where he all of a sudden be snapping and he'll just keep making himself laugh. And then he'll have to yell really inappropriate things at himself."

Alison interjected that Donald Glover (Troy) also gets his share of laughs from on set antics, but Danny observed, "I think it's all around the table. Everyone has definitely a good amount that's going to be pretty hard to shuffle through for the DVD."

Part of this humor stems from the fact that over the course of two seasons the cast of Community has become more and more comfortable with each other, much like students would by the sophomore year of college. Danny pointed out, "This is the second year that these characters all know each other. We came in to Greendale not knowing each other at all and so it was only natural that the more you discover about each other’s characters and how you bounce off each other the more you learn about their back stories, where they come from, their lives, the more complicated everything becomes…"

He continued, "Because of that… there's a lot more at stake in terms of our comedy… which I think is really great, too… The show has done a great job of being consistent with keeping the characters rotating. So I feel like you really know where each character’s coming from at this point, which I think makes a lot of the jokes pop more and you also really know how every character’s going to react to a situation at this point."

Alison added, "It's natural for any show to grow… A pilot is just a jumping off point. It's just the thing that you're trying to sell so that people want to watch and are interested in these characters or this story. Dan Harmon really utilized it in that way as a jumping off point. And at that point you get a cast of people. You're hoping they are all going to gel well together. It's such an interesting process just putting together a pilot that's so bizarre."

She expanded, "I think that so quickly we all clicked and gelled as a cast. And then Dan Harmon started to realize that we were also willing to do anything that he would put before us and that the show and the group as it grew stronger was capable of doing anything. So a lot of this stuff is just Dan Harmon and our writers and our producers really just continuing to take great risks and push us and pull us in these different directions."

Some of those twists and turns have included the recent lesbian episode where Annie and Brita almost kissed. Alison revealed, "It was such a funny thing because it wasn’t in the script. We improved it when we were doing it. And then Joe Russo, one of our producers, was there. And he’s like, 'Ah, that’s so great. I’ll just yell kiss her and then you guys do that.' And everyone behind the monitor was like, 'Yes.' It was clearly a bunch of dudes.

Danny stated, "It was crazy that we were all so competitive about that. It was crazy to see that actually end up in an episode, too, because we were so excited about it."

Alison professed, "I couldn’t believe they kept it in, to be honest. But I have to say we really didn’t get that close to kissing. I think we actually got closer to kissing in a photograph that one of our writers posted on Twitter."

But it's the episode where Jeff kissed Annie that keeps the fans talking. And Alison acknowledged, "Their flirtation is not over." She offered up, "Annie holds a little flame for Jeff… There is a bit of a push and pull between the two of them. And actually in this [latest] episode… there's a bit of that tension there throughout the election. I think that their bumping heads fuels more of that. Any time they’re together there's a bit of that because it can’t exist or because it's controversial I think that makes it dangerous and interesting. And obviously to Annie it's exciting to have a crush on an older guy. And she continues to try to challenge Jeff in that way. So their spark is not totally dead… But we shall see. We'll have to wait and see if it's going to amount to anything in the future."

But if things don’t work out with Jeff, Alison and Danny conceded there most likely won’t be any romance with Annie and Abed.

Alison suggested, "Abed [is] such a platonic member of the group… I know we talk about every viable sexual candidate for everyone else. But I do feel like there's some bond that everyone in the group as with Abed."

Danny agreed, "Abed knows the dangers of what happens when the group gets all mixed up. He's seen that. And he's warned Troy, for instance, about being roommates. So they don’t want to get too close because he knows what happens when best friends are roommates as well. So I think he's trying to stay out of their [way]… But who knows, every episode we’re always surprised at what we’re doing."

Tune into Community for more surprises on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on NBC.

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Shedding for the Wedding Is No Biggest Loser

We’re very excited for tonight’s premiere of Shedding for the Wedding. First of all, we love a good weight loss show. Secondly, we dig a romance. And thirdly, we really enjoy watching the dynamics of couples under pressure. So the Sara Rue hosted series is right up our alley. At a recent press event, the show’s Executive Producer Dan Broome talked about how Shedding differs from Loser, the amount of weight loss to expect and dream weddings.

Broome explained, “First and foremost, because our show does not deal with weight in numbers. We convert the weight loss into a percentage. So it equals the level it makes the playing field completely level for everybody.”

He continued, “If you weigh 100 pounds and you lose 10 pounds, you've lost 10 percent. And if I weigh 200 pounds, I need to lose 20 pounds to have that same 10 percent. So I have to lose more weight to hit the same number percentage-wise than you do.”

He dispelled the myth that heavier people lose more quickly, saying, “It could be said that bigger people could lose weight easily, but that's not necessarily true, as I've seen on Biggest Loser. And I've actually become an expert in the last eight years with this in my own way. Some of those people can't move the way a smaller person can. Some of those people can't do the cardio that a smaller person can. So there's advantages and disadvantages, but the way we deal with it for fairness is you get on a scale.”

While that format is similar to Loser, the size of the contestants is very different on Shedding. Broome revealed, “This is much more of a relatable weight loss, sadly I guess, for the average person out there, 50, 60, 70 pounds of weight on our typical contestant. In some cases, a little bit more, but for the most part, that's the average. So we're not only going to see reveals of weight loss, but I think we're going to be able to see some reveals of actually body sculpting in a way that we haven't seen, that I can't really even achieve on Biggest Loser, nor have I seen it on any other weight loss show yet. So I think the audience is going to be really inspired by this cast.”

Aside from the weight loss, Shedding is also about love. First of all, one lucky couple will get a pretty swanky consolation prize. “We're an eight episode series. So we're down to two couples. We will bring back all of our eliminated couples. We start with nine. Seven of them are going to get on a scale, and one couple is going to win a fantasy honeymoon.”

And then one of the sets of finalists will win the ultimate ceremony. “And then we're going to put our two finalists on the scale, and one of them is going to win the fantasy wedding. And it's all going to take place in that finale. So we're going to do a weigh in, and then we're going to literally crash into the mayhem of putting a wedding together 48 hours later with all of the elements of their theme.”

Each week the contestants plan another part of their dream wedding. The winning couple will see all of those elements come together for their special day. “Each one of these couples has a different wedding theme. There's a ‘fun and games’ theme where their whole life is about board games. That's what they've incorporated into their wedding. Or a ‘video game couple. That's how they met, online in a video game. Every element of their wedding has a video game component to it. It's very fun. And these wedding themes are a big deal right now, as I've learned. So we are going to do that in our finale.”

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The Real Housewives Countess Is Full of Surprises

Photo by Will Hart/NBC 

The Real Housewives of New York’s Countess Luann de Lesseps is full of surprises. Besides being a star of one of the most successful reality franchises in history, she’s a singer, author and actress. In a recent conference call interview she talked about her pop music follow-up, her first book and her upcoming appearance on Law & Order: SVU.

Thanks to her fan base from Housewives, LuAnn had a hit with the song “Money Can’t Buy You Class,” and her music career continues to evolve. As for the rumored big name pop star that she’s been working with on her follow-up single, the Countess was tight lipped, saying only, “I can’t give away obviously who the artist is but it’s a major artist in the music business.”

When her Bravo series started, the Countess never imagined it would become a pop culture phenomenon. She admitted, “I didn’t know what was coming, when I started The Real Housewives, which was supposed to be called Manhattan Moms it wasn’t even The Real Housewives. Little did I know that the show would become such a huge success.”

Nor did she anticipate becoming an author with the self-help/memoir Class with the Countess. She added, “Never did I think I would write a book about my life and manners and etiquette. My book is really autobiographical about my journey and that’s what I share with people, is my experience and what I learned along the way.”

And she certainly didn’t expect to become a big recording star. She continued, “And then being able to… record and sing ‘Money Can’t Buy You Class.’ I always thought it, and said it in my book, but to actually sing a song about it was really, really fun for me.”

But perhaps the biggest surprise has been her upcoming turn on SVU. The countess confessed, “To think I would be on Law & Order, I would have said no way. And I just feel like it’s my time. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve found somebody who adores me in my life again and I just have a second chance and SVU is a part of that second chance and it’s very exciting.”

The Countess, who went through a very public break-up of her first marriage, has also found new love. While she remained equally evasive about any details that might otherwise unfold on Housewives, she did gush about her new man, CEO of Gabriella Wines Importer and Distributor Jacques Azoulay. “Yes, you will see more of my romance bloom on this coming season. And I feel so fortunate that I got a second chance because it doesn’t happen to everybody and I really feel blessed that I found such an amazing person to share my life with. So you’re going to see some of that coming this season.”

There’s no air date for the new season of The Real Housewives of New York, but you can catch the Countess’ acting debut on February 23 on Law & Order: SVU at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. Central on NBC.

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