A Quick Note This will be my last...

A Quick Note This will be my last night watching the Monday shows. Starting Sept. 13, the fabulous Ms. Rebecca Peterson will work Watercooler Mondays and I'll move to Thursday nights. Wish me luck!North Shore It's back! And, apparently, where there's trouble, there's Tessa. First the formerly broke Miss Con Woman secretly gives fine Mr. Bar Manager Frankie $10,000 to open a nightclub/lounge in the Grand Waimea Hotel. "I'll be your silent partner," she says. (No word on why she happens to have that kind of money lying around.) Then, after Nicole moves in with her billionaire dad to find out if he killed her mother, Margaret (who, it turns out, was in love with her boss Vincent back in the day), Tessa goes to "Daddy" and offers to spy on the whole Grand Waimea family. The reason she volunteers to be a back-stabbing beyaatch: "I want the money, the career, the man. I want it all. And I will get it." Now we're talking. Thank you, producers, for amping up the soap factor!That Gap Commercial Last week I mocked Lenny for jamming with Sarah Jessica Parker in this spot. This week I caught myself dancing to it both times it aired during North Shore. What's happening?Fear Factor In the beginning, when all the past winners were doing The Walk, Neal Holmes said, "Last time I was on the show I was the first openly gay contestant that they had. My goal was to break down the stereotypes that people have of the gay community." OK. You're here. You're queer. I'm used to it. Fine. But, if you're trying to break stereotypes, Neal, then you need to quit switching. Seriously, dude. You've got more than a little sugar in your step. As a recovering Hag, I'm just saying.... Moving right along: It's a good thing that I'm leaving Mondays. Because I need to quit watching this show. Tonight I had an inner argument over whether or not I could do the semi truck/beam-riding stunt. Could I do it? I don't think I could. I don't have the balance. I could not be one with the bike. Wait. That's negative thinking. I could do it. I could.... No, I couldn't. See what I mean? A girl gets too emotionally involved in the stunts.Kravitz Count I saw The Ad once during Fear Factor. No dancing, though.Hawaii So this perp gets caught trading cocaine for C4. When he asked for a lawyer during his interrogation, Detective Edwards said, "You know what the problem with that is, smart guy? As an enemy combatant, you don't get a lawyer." OK, that freaked me out. Granted, dude committed two illegal acts at once. But, still, doesn't he get to have counsel? Isn't that the American way? I mean, can cops really do that — just shut a guy down like that? Now I'll admit that when the whole treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that Yaser Hamdi case were back in the news I thought, that's them from over there and we're at war with their country. Sucks to be "Them." Then I went back to watching Friends reruns. (Hey, there's a reason I work for TV Guide.) But this is Us. Over here. Americans born and raised. And if there are any facts behind the fiction in this B-level TV show, then goodness gracious I'm scared. Talk about erosion of our civil rights. Whoa. I feel a protest coming on. Wait. This is TV Guide. Must revert. Must be light.... Ha-ha! I'm just now getting the in-joke from last week's Hawaii premiere. Sharif Atkins' character said he just moved to Hawaii from Chicago. Atkins is also known as The Guy Who Left ER to Do This Show. And, yo, Eric Balfour speaking Japanese is kinda hot...Kravitz Count It's up to four times in one night.Renovate My Family Oh, Jay! I'll admit it: Jay McGraw is my new love-to-hate smarmy reality-show host. And tonight he was straight-up channeling daddy Dr. Phil when he got all confrontational with Gary Rosier. "This is not about you!" he said. (Gary's son Steven was paralyzed during a snowboarding accident.) "And you have to accept him for the way he is right now." True words. But, not for nothing, I know that carpenter guy wanted to pop Jay with the hammer when he had the nerve to get on the crew about being behind schedule in building the house. "If you're going to continue to do the same thing, you're going to continue to get the same results," Jay psychobabbled, acting like they were slacking off — and not recovering from a huge electrical fire. Riiight. I wish somebody'd said, "Hey Jay, what about you? That kid in the wheelchair's still got issues. Tick-tock. Step it up!"How Clean Is Your House? The Bradford family has five kids, two adults, 10 cats, two rats, one snake and, apparently, no shame. Seriously. Why would you ever let anyone — let alone television cameras — into that dump? But I like this show. Those British ladies are crazy. But they give great tips like: Use Tide to clean silver. And use those annoying exfoliating gloves to clean counters and such. Good to know.ESPN's Silver Anniversary Special I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. But about 20 different couples really did name their children Espn (pronounced Espin) after this network. That's some sick kind of sports love right there. No joke.Surreal LifeCharo, Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen in the same house — it had me rolling. In the first episode, Brigitte got drunk, got naked, got in a slap fight with Public Enemy's hype man and rolled around with the wet puppy. Plus, Ryan Starr freaked out and Jordan Knight boxed himself in his doorless bedroom. And don't even get me started on the things that come out of Flavor Flav's mouth.... If you didn't catch the premiere last night, get a tape. You need to see this. As the Flav said, "Operation 'No Doubt' is in process."Kravitz Count OK. That's five times now. Enough already!