Reality TV Time: Escape to the Country

Posted on by thepoelog

If you are a reasonably cautious person, you are now well into your fifth month of quarantine/self-isolation/stay-at-home/work-from-home-ness. Congratulations on caring not only for your own health, but for your community as a whole.

I’m sure, like most of us, you are hankering for a getaway. Maybe a trip abroad (HA!). Or, slightly more realistically, someplace serene and peaceful, with lots of fresh air and rolling hills dotted with quaint cottages and rustic cabins.

Maybe you yearn to go someplace far from the bustle of urban life full of all these people going out maskless to restaurants and bars and Costco because, in reality, those people are idiots who don’t believe that COVID-19 is real, or at least, not as bad as the media is making it out to be and, goddammit last time they checked, “America was the land of the free and the home of the brave,” and they’re “not going to be told what they can or can’t do,” and by the way, “it’s a proven fact that masks make COVID worse!”

I’m already hyperventilating. I feel you. I, too, wish to escape. In fact, a lot of us do, which has given arise to a whole new, back-to-basics aesthetic trend known as cottagecore.

Along those lines, I have found a (very) safe way to give in to that vibe. Let me introduce you to the quarantine viewing wonder that is the BBC One’s “Escape to the Country.”

There is no coronavirus on “Escape to the Country.” Mostly because the only season we seem to be able to track down is Season 22 on Amazon Prime, and, lucky for us, Season 22 was filmed in the quaint olden times of 2014.

I had read that the show was available on Netflix, but I can’t find even one other season, either there or on our YouTube/Roku TV.

The beauty of this program is that it combines the desire to travel abroad (safely) with the yearning for beautiful, peaceful landscapes. In this case, in England. Without leaving your house.

We’ve been watching Season 22 for the last week or so and let me tell you, my heart swells and my stress melts away just hearing the dulcet string instrument intro and watching the camera pan over hills and valleys and dales before settling on a close up of some yellow flower in the field (Is it a daffodil? I think it is).

Nope. Not a daffodil.

The format is a lot like HGTV’s House Hunters, except, decidedly rural: A couple or family is looking to trade in city life for a slower paced life in the country.

Many of the house hunters on the show are also looking for more independence, and want a property that also presents a business opportunity, like a separate apartment or cottage to rent out.

And, they all want properties that combine character and Old World charm with some modern conveniences.

To me, it sounds like a ridiculously tall order. But, literally, in every episode, our hosts of “Escape to the Country” deliver, offering up two properties that fit the bill (and, unlike many house hunting shows, actually come in around or under the couple’s stated budget).

They also offer up a third “mystery property,” that challenges the home hunters to think outside of the box. Sometimes that’s like, a church conversion, or a huge property with lots of outbuildings and barns waiting to be converted into apartments or rental units, or a miniature airplane modeling and sales studio (that was the stated professional goal of one of the gentlemen house hunters in a recent episode).

After a walk through each property, the house hunters meet up with the host and give their best guesses on how much the property is on the market for. Then the host reveals the actual price, which, again, is usually under budget or very near the top but almost never over.

At the end of two days of looking at the three properties, the house hunters sit down with the host and tell them which property was their favorite and what they’re next steps will be.

The houses are charming and sometimes quirky or historic (I now know exactly what a snug room is and am thisclose to demanding we buy an AGA range), there’s a little local history lesson in each episode, the hosts are gentle, patient and helpful. The cinematography is gorgeous. It’s a great, great show.

My only quibble is that Brits are just too cautious for my taste. They almost never agree to just put an offer in on one of the houses! They always say they’re going to do some more research about the village or the area and visit the property again. Even in instances where they’ve already sold their own city homes and only have like, a month for find something. They’re just so timid!

It is beyond frustrating. My TV co-partner, XFE and I always end up shout incredulously, “But you LOVED the mystery house! It literally had everything you asked for!! And was way under budget!!! What are you waiting for? Get to the estate agent before someone else snatches it up!”

As XFE recently put it, the show should be called “A Chinwag in the Country.”

But it is a really great show that seriously plays into my recent cottagecore/cabin fever feelings. Now if we can just figure out how to get the more recent episodes. I saw on Twitter that one couple with a sizable budget was looking for a country house with a helipad!

Hair Accessories to Cover the Quarantine Grays (Inspired by Bravo)

Posted on by thepoelog

As Leslie Jordan of Instagram fame would say: Hello, all you fellow hunker downers.

(I know you’re already following him on Instagram. He’s got 3.5 million followers. But if you’re not, you should. His hot takes on quarantining are gold. Pure, Instagram gold.)

So, it’s getting to be that time. No, not time to begin going to bars, restaurants and bowling alleys again, no matter what various idiots in the government say.

I will not be leaving my house until there is an FDA-approved and completely tested vaccine shot, an at-home antibody test, and a comprehensive contact tracing program up and running. (By the way, where is our Google website directing me to popup testing facilities in the parking lots of WalMart and Walgreens? Huh, JARED??).

Anyway. Sorry to get so political there. I just get so mad.

What I’m actually talking about when I refer to “that time” is that first missed hair appointment. With salons closed across the country, we are all about to have to come to terms with our “natural” hair (likely for the first time in years).

Pretty accurate.

My last hair appointment (single color touchup and a trim) was on March 3 and we went into self-isolation on March 13. I usually have my hair appointment every 7-8 weeks, and my regularly scheduled appointment would have been today.

Obviously, my salon is closed and I wouldn’t go anyway (see above). So, I’ve been having to do some deep soul searching. I’ve been fluctuating from Dora-the-Explorer optimism (“Oh, I wonder just how gray I am under there? Maybe it’s not so bad”) to Bill O-Reilly-Inside Edition-take-charge-meltdown (“F-it, we’ll do it live”).

Source:
JonathanSison1 on Tenor

I’m definitely not home cutting my own naturally curly hair. I’m pretty sure I’d end up looking like Rosanne Roseannadanna.

However, I might eventually cave in and home color my own naturally gray roots. I have not actually decided yet. I will say, those Madison Reid people appear to be reading my thoughts and are absolutely stalking me with ads on Instagram.

More likely, I’ll embrace a few hair accessories to tide me over until I feel safe to go outside again without dying, so, like 2021 or 2022.

And you know who knows how to work a hair accessory all the live long day? The ladies of the Bravo Universe. Here’s a few Bravo-inspired suggestions I’m thinking of adding to my Sally’s Hair Supply “essential needs” cart.

Turban: I think I actually saw Porsha Williams wearing a gorgeous multi-colored geometric turban on one of the last episodes of this season’s Real Housewives of Atlanta, but the real queen of Turbans on Bravo is none other than the former Shahs of Sunset’s Asa Soltan Rahmati. Paired with an Asa Kaftan and a bottle of healing Diamond Water and you have perfect quarantine couture. Even better if the turban is blinged out.

Wig: Clearly, there are many Bravo celebrities who enjoy a good wig, including every single cast member who has ever appeared on Real Housewives of Atlanta (in fact, several of them have their own wig lines). However, my current favorite wig devotee is Destiney Rose from Shahs of Sunset. Not only does she have a whole slew of them that she wears just for fun (her own hair is gorgeous), but she creates whole personas and back stories for her alter egos in each of the wigs. It’s great fantasy fun for our quarantined times and I am here for it.

Hat: There have been lots of hats in the Bravo Universe, including some really bad cowboy hats in the recent episode of Shahs of Sunset when the crew went to a Boots & Brews music festival. However, the true iconic hat on Bravo has to be my queen, Erika Jayne Girardi’s slicked back hair/Moschino couture confessional LEWK on season 9. (Sheer black swiss dot gloves optional). While I’m not confident it will cover my gray roots, it’s would look great on Zoom.

Headscarf: Real Housewives of Beverly Hill’s Lisa Rinna often dons a bandana on her way to and from workouts, but I’m interested in something much more glamorous. Which is why, once again, I turn to my Destiney Rose from Shahs of Sunset. This light blue silk print number (worn OVER A WIG to a POOL PARTY with a long, FUR-trimmed coat) is amazing. It’s a one-two punch that will definitely cover the grays and the growing out haircut.

So that’s it. A couple of mostly sensible hair accessory options to help tide us over while we all do what is necessary and stay inside.

Reality TV Time: Too Hot to Handle

Posted on by thepoelog

Whelp, Netflix has done it again. The streaming TV service is legit winning the quarantine game, releasing one splendid, bingeworthy, let’s-forget-what-day-it-is-and-escape-this-hellish-landscape-called-modern-life program after another.

Their latest offering: #THTH, otherwise known as “Too Hot to Handle.”

(I know I said I was going to talk about Tiger King, but honestly, in this fast-paced, binging environment, TK is old news and we have got to get to the hot, new, young disaster programming).

“Too Hot To Handle” is indeed, muy caliente. The dating game/reality series was filmed at a $15,000 a night private resort in Punta Mita, Mexico sometime last year. The show feels very familiar at first: there are 10 very attractive young people (mostly from the UK and the US) with the expected outsized egos (Several of them mention their super attractiveness during their intro reels, as well as the size of their ahem, eggplants. Honestly, you start off hating each and every one of them).

There’s Haley, the sorority girl from Florida, Francesca, an Instagram model from Canada, Chloe, a model from Essex, Rhonda, a restaurant manager from Georgia; Nicole, a social media influencer from Ireland. On the guys side, there’s Sharron, a model/entertainer from New Jersey, David, a nutrition coach from London, Harry, a YouTube “star” from Australia, Matthew, a model from Colorado and Kelz, a football (not soccer, American-style football) player from London.

The whole show has very much got the whole “Love Island” vibe, right down to the soundtrack and even the setting, which is very similar. But unlike Love Island, which clocks in at oh, approximately 40 episodes, each one hour long (not kidding. My reality-TV-life-partner, XFE and I watched all of them over the holidays and it was a project, let me tell you), Too Hot To Handle is just eight sexy, sweaty 40-minute episodes.

THTH is also very reminiscent of that other Netflix gem, “Love Is Blind.” Not because our singles first meet each other by flirting through a frosted wall in a weirdly called, “pod.” But, both shows do push the ridiculous narrative of “forming deeper emotional connections” with members of the opposite sex.

But while Love Is Blind tried to capitalize on the idea of forming a connection based on personality and conversation, not physical attraction, the folks at THTH try to push a deeper emotional connection (PLOT TWIST) by banning sexual activity. No kissing, no putting things in other things, and no self-gratification.

And, because that no sex rule truly seems impossible when you have 10 hot, young horndogs running around in skimpy resort wear for 30 days, the producers had to add an incentive: a $100,000 pot of money. They don’t really outline who will win the money or how, exactly, but they do make it clear that money will be deducted for every indiscretion. Also, neither we, nor the contestants, find out how much will be deducted until an infraction occurs. Which it does, almost immediately.

And the reason we know that is because of an Alexa-like, digital assistant known as Lana who is placed throughout the resort and is basically spying on our hot, young singles. Lana then spills the beans on any infractions — often in graphic detail which for some odd reason was bleeped out — during a nightly gather-around-the-firepit.

The show was actually a very interesting psychological study, because you really did get an idea of how different people are motivated by different things. XFE pointed out that all of the contestants could just agree from the start that they were all going to bonk like little rabbits for the next 30 days on this gorgeous resort and who cares about the money? You basically got a free vacation and nonstop sex.

But they didn’t do that. Some of them (mostly those who weren’t immediately attracted to someone else) really cared a lot about the money and did not want to see the pot dwindle at all. Others, the “rulebreakers” often felt a lot of pressure to not give in because they didn’t want to get grief from the rest of the group. And in a few instances, the rest of the group felt the “rulebreakers” had actually formed a deeper connection by getting physical and therefore agreed that it was ok and probably worth the price.

There are a couple of other hokey, typical dating-show twists thrown in throughout: some self-improvement workshops that are mostly silly, a fantasy suite, a reward system, a couple of attractive “grenades” thrown in to try to shake things up—most of which didn’t necessarily need to happen, but kept the show from getting stale the last couple of episodes.

I think it remains to be seen whether any of the “rulebreaker” couples really did form deeper, more lasting relationships – unlike Love Island and Love Is Blind, there isn’t a reunion episode (but articles can be found all over the Internet). But Too Hot To Handle did help me form a deeper emotional connection with Netflix’s excellent programming choices and made me even more wary of our Google Home devices.