Thoughts of this season as a whole:

• Ellen is not a very good judge. Yes, she may offer some comic relief once in a while, and she may be a good substitute for Paula, but she just isn’t as astute when it comes to offering musical advice, and she thereby doesn’t really offer real help to the contestants themselves.
• There should be better guest mentors and guest judges in the next season. Idol started off very impressively this season, with guest judges like Katy Perry, Neil Patrick Harris, and Kristin Chenoweth in the audition rounds. In the performance shows, we had mentors like Harry Connick Jr and Adam Lambert that made the show fun to watch. However, getting Jamie Foxx to be a mentor again, and some other really boring mentors didn’t stir things up one bit.
• Idol fell into Singapore Idol’s trap this season. SI kept dictating its viewers who to vote for (VOTE FOR THE GIRLS!), and Idol did the same thing. They power-packed the girls, encouraged the audience to vote for them (‘It’s a girls’ season’) and look at what happened? Crystal was the only girl out of the top 5, and she didn’t win.
• There were too many contestants who resembled past contestants. Didi Benami vs. Brooke White, Lilly Scott vs. Megan Joy, Aaron Kelly vs. David Archuleta, Michael Lynche vs. Ruben Studdard, Lee DeWyze vs. David Cook.
• Don’t eliminate the early contestants so early! If only Lilly Scott stayed on a little longer, things would’ve been more exciting! Things like the ‘Wild Card’ (who brought back contestants like Clay Aiken, Jennifer Hudson, Matt Giraud, Anoop Desai and Megan Joy), or even a different elimination process (similar to SYTYCD)
• Some songs have to be banned. How many times do I have to hear ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’ and ‘Feeling Good’?!
• Old-fashioned weekly themes like Elvis, Sinatra, McCartney should be done away with. Just keep throwing out themes like Billboard Top 40 hits, and the contestants would instantly come across as more current and relevant.

Hoping Idol 2011 would be a much more kick-ass one!

Russell gets visibly upset when Sandra played the hidden immunity idol without informing him. He accuses Sandra of lying (to which she responds ‘What do you mean, like when I find an Idol I should hurry up and tell you?), and subsequently Parvati.

Parvati wins the first immunity challenge, leaving Colby no choice but to deliver his ‘surrender speech’ to the tribe. Yet, he made one last attempt to stay in the game, in which he pleaded Russell to get rid of Sandra. Russell comments that the problem with keeping Colby is ‘he could possibly go to the top three. And that’s it. My game is over.’ Russell, your game was long over.

Despite their issues of distrust, the Villains chose to stick to their original alliance, and voted off Colby, who became the eighth member of the jury.

After the Rites of Passage, the four remaining Survivors competed in a Survivor Maze where they are each blindfolded. The first person to collect all four necklaces at four different stations wins. Unfortunately, Russell wins and Parvati starts freaking out. I must say the immunity challenge was a damn kancheong one. All three of them were inches apart of each other!!

Russell tells Sandra that he wants her ‘in the final three because he thinks he can beat her for the million’, and Sandra replies ‘All right, I’ll take the hundred thousand’. Later on, she reveals, ‘I’m feeling wonderful because regardless Russell is keeping me around because I’ll never get a single vote... but I don’t know about that’. HAHA. Of course, Parvati is more discerning in figuring that Sandra might potentially receive a lot of jury votes.

At Tribal Council, Jerri was ultimately voted off, for she is viewed as a bigger threat than Parvati. Russell thinks he’s able to secure Jerri’s jury vote, but Parvati let the cat out of the bag in the final tribal council.

Sandra gets a payback for all that has been done to her in the game by Russell, as she threw Russell’s hat in the fire. (Y)

I think what solidified Sandra’s victory was her response to Amanda’s question, on how her strategy in the game was better than Russell’s or Parvati’s. She replied, ‘I wish my strategy had been better, because if it was really good, Russell wouldn’t be sitting here.’ She also cited instances of trying to use Heroes to help her vote out Russell, saying ‘I could never get Heroes on my side’.

Sandra received 6 of the 9 jury votes [the 6 includes the 5 Heroes, and her best ally Courtney], with Parvati receiving the remaining 3 [Jerri, Danielle and Coach]. Zilch for Russell, and to think he was so confident of winning it. Joker. As Danielle put it, he certainly has a lack of skill in jury management.

““I have to focus on the game because I came for one reason, and one reason only…for another million dollars. If that makes our lives easier, then why not. This is how I hustle. This is how I make my money. I come out here and play Survivor. That’s what I know how to do, that’s what I am best at.” – Sandra

[I almost died when Russell was awarded $100,000 for being the Sprint Player of the Season. Seriously, wtf? He’s so stupid! He doesn’t get the concept of a jury, even after 2 seasons!!]

Fun fact:
Sandra has not won a single immunity challenge in her span of 2 seasons, both of which she won the title of Sole Survivor. Ironic!

Solos
Lee Dewyze – ‘Kiss From A Rose’ by Seal, from Batman Forever
That was honestly quite boring. Other than the raspy voice which I fancied at the start, his performance started to lose my attention, mostly because so many people have done this number before and he was not very original with the arrangement. That was an absolute waste of opportunity for a week where people could choose songs from the movies.

Michael Lynche – ‘Will You Be There’ by Michael Jackson, from Free Willy
This was a very boring gospel-like rendition of MJ’s song. His proclaimed goal of making it to the Top Three totally ruined his chances of even making it into the Top Three.

Casey James – ‘Mrs. Robinson’ by Simon and Garfunkel, from The Graduate
Well, at least he tried to switch the arrangement up a bit. He probably chose this song for Kara LOL. The performance didn’t really maximize his talent very effectively.

Crystal Bowersox – ‘I’m Alright’ by Kenny Loggins, from Caddyshack
She certainly crystallized it into a song of her own. A true artist. I like her boyfriend’s pants.

Duets
Crystal Bowersox and Lee Dewyze –‘Falling Slowly’ by Glen Hasnard and Markéta Irglová, from Once
This was easily the best performance of the entire season. They were like true blue veterans.

Casey James and Michael Lynche – ‘Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?’ by Bryan Adams, from Don Juan DeMarco
I liked the blend of their sultry voices. Interestingly, the duets were way more outstanding than the solo performances! Ellen’s comment was just the epic bomb.

Bottom 2: Crystal Bowersox (lol?) and Michael Lynche

Eliminated: Michael Lynche

• The second instalment of Ip Man touches on issues of Colonialism, such as the British government's interferences with the media, police brutality and corruption, as well as their general lack of respect for local culture and customs.
• The super calm and composed Ip Man (played by Donnie Yen) discovers that martial arts schools in Hong Kong operate like triads rather than respectable institutions.
• Ip Man starts recruiting disciples because he needed money to pay for his son’s education and his household expanses. One of his students Leung (played by Huang Xiao Ming) keeps getting Ip Man’s Wing Chun discipline into trouble, so Ip Man’s poverty problems aren’t really solved.
• The role of Ip Man’s wife (played by Xiong Dai Lin) is rather useless, other than the fact that she bore a child during the 100 minutes.
• The rivalry between the two masters, Master Ip and Master Hung (played by Sammo Hung), could have definitely been developed even further before they became allies against TWISTER, the English boxing champ (played by Darren Shahlayi).

• Twister, one of the most caricaturist boxers I’ve ever witnessed, definitely managed to make the Chinese viewing audience very pissed off with him LOL. He said some very foolish things.
• The film wastes no time in getting to the action and within just a few minutes Yen clashes first with Huang Xiaoming, then rival students and street punks, and finally a mass fistfight before encountering a face-to-face with Master Hung.
• Favourite scene? The part where Ip Man was invited to face all the local martial arts masters, in which he had to accept any challenge thrown at him, while fighting the whole time on a large tabletop. If he stays up long enough, he will be granted permission to run his school.
• Simon Yam’s role was such a waste. He just had to look filthy and eat roasted goose off the streets.
• Moral of the story: Don’t mess with the Chinese, people with a collective spirit, people with pride and dignity.