Yeah, that's the distinction I drew as well.  The red sauce guys are drawing from their own histories to create something cool, as opposed to the more cynical cash-in attempts where it's just mediocre food being served because that's all people expect.

Felicity being brought on-board reminds me far too much of when Smallville had the balls to turn Chloe into Oracle.

This would be very interesting if Chase was actually in on it the entire time and the producers were doing some Inception-like conning of the actors.  But I doubt they're going to go there.

"He sort-of had a look indicating he knew it would anger some."

JT was kinda-sorta trained as an actor thanks to the Mickey Mouse Club stuff, so it wasn't surprising he was comfortable on camera.  I thought Britney was okay when she hosted, as well, which bears that idea out.

He inexplicably busted that out at the Victoria's Secret fashion show, as well.

Well, the lower winning percentage is because, unlike in Japan, the judging panels aren't nearly as deferential towards the ICs.

It's kind of a running gag in my house - especially after last year when Paul knocked off three women in the finale and then Floyd won over two others.

As Bill Simmons once said, Chopped is MUCH more interesting if you and your significant other put $5 on a couple of the chefs once they're finished with their bio segments.

Objection: Next Iron Chef is basically Top Chef minus the Bravo-focused stupidity.  Plus the chefs are much, much better (or much much improved, in the case of Marcel's surprising run of awesomeness this year).

"What characteristics does Roy Harper have besides "druggy fuckup"?"

"What characteristics does Roy Harper have besides "druggy fuckup"?"

Which, these days, isn't exactly too far-fetched.  It'll probably come out that Peter was buddies with Bill James.

Albeit one who nearly played pro ball.

Padma seems like she'd be the most susceptible to the producers whispering in her ear that Josie makes for good drama and keeping her around wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

MTV has a bunch of weird restrictions on their various reality shows - they tend to use red cups wherever possible, for instance.  Of course, most of the time that's for plausible deniability since the subjects are underage.

Yeah, it was a nice twist on the whole idea - but it was probably a bit too complex for mainstream viewers.  I'm surprised ABC hasn't managed to sell the idea to some cable network, since it'd work just as well with a lower budget.

I see what you did there.

We mostly know Peter's backstory - how he went to school to work as an accountant before going into the FBI, how he met Mrs. Suit, etc. - but I don't think we know much about his parents (they've shown his in-laws, of course).

Yeah, a lot of the stuff like that on this show is basically begging for a Mythbusters investigation (see also the bomb that Neal and Mozzie cooked up in the school chem lab a couple seasons ago. "… oh, this is a VERY good school.")