Possums, we've been receiving word from readers that the frames (reproduced in our earlier post) that were captured by the gimlet-eyed, conspiratorially-minded gentlefolk at Television Without Pity, and that purport to prove that the attempt to shave Marcel Vigneron's head occurred before Ilan Hall and Elia Aboumrad shaved their heads, have been removed from Bravo's subsequent rebroadcasts of last week's episode. Can any of you possums confirm this?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Amuse-Biatch Tinfoil-Hat Alert: Is Elia Aboumrad's Grassy Knoll Getting One More Cut?
Possums, we've been receiving word from readers that the frames (reproduced in our earlier post) that were captured by the gimlet-eyed, conspiratorially-minded gentlefolk at Television Without Pity, and that purport to prove that the attempt to shave Marcel Vigneron's head occurred before Ilan Hall and Elia Aboumrad shaved their heads, have been removed from Bravo's subsequent rebroadcasts of last week's episode. Can any of you possums confirm this?
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22 comments:
Bleh. Bravo sucks. The insipid bitch must have won if they're covering her ass and trying to make her look better. How pathetic.
Do you think Bravo also can alter the episode that's been available to download from iTunes--or would that still contain the original footage?
Oops, I'm not even sure Season 2 of Top Chef is available on iTunes yet. I just remembered it was a show from Season 1 that I downloaded from there recently.
I don't know about ITUNES, but all the torrent downloads show the originally aired episode with Elia in the hallway. She is easily visible, and her laughter is audible, even without slow-mo.
There are screencaps of her all over the internet on every forum and Top Chef-related site.
The casual viewers might miss it, but I'm certain most die hard fans already know the truth about her.
Elia's win will be tainted. She is no Harold. It will be a hollow and undeserved "victory".
while i love the "tin-foil hat" intrigue (note to Project Runway 4 : Tin Hats!), i frankly think Bravo doesn't have the brains to be this cunning.
bravo : we have a problem with the video of the assault.
andy : weeee! i'm BFFs with sarah jessica parker!
bravo : this makes us look like thugs advocating violence.
andy : weee! i'm popular and could be the head cheerleader if i wanted!!
bravo : we're going to delete all evidence of the assault.
andy : weeee! brunch is ready! did i mention i'm popular??
I just watched a repeat of the show and I can confirm that they completly cut Elia out of the clip where Marcel is leaving the scene of the assault.
Unfuckingbelievable.
Yep. Marcel is only visible from the waist up as he walks away from Cliff. The Elia shot is completely cut out in the rebroadcasts.
I have the footage in question for the original broadcast and tonight's rebroadcast and the scenes have been altered. You can not see Elia on the floor or standing afterwards.
They have changed the footage.
That also means that they switched
the timelines of the incidents. The attempt on Marcel was before the shaving of their heads. Like they thought, ooops! we better have a cover story of why Marcel almost got his head ahaved.
It's true; I just watched the repeat of that episode specifically looking for Elia, and she was gone. I was starting to think I had imagined it - good thing I came over here =).
I saw another discrepancy in the timeline...
When Ilan is talking in his confessional "and then we thought, since it was our last night, we'd ask to borrow a camera ...", he is clearly discussing the act of filming themselves in the PAST TENSE, and Ilan STILL HAS HAIR.
More proof that the BRAVO monkeys screwed with the timeline.
Elia is a liar.
I just rewatched the episode & saw the part where they cropped Elia out of the shot. Did anyone else notice that the blank date (on the bottom left side of the screen) is still in the exact same place as the rest of the uncropped footage?
Shouldn't the frames where Elia has been cropped out have the date missing as well? I always thought that conveniently blank date looked suspicious...
Bravo should really hire editors who pay more attention to details. LOL.
Hello, its been totally obvious Elia will win (or is at least getting a way better edit than deserved) since around the Thanksgiving/surfer episodes. She was whiny and completely middle-of-the-pack mediocre the first half of the season, while Cliff & Sam were "all golden boy", and then suddenly the roles were completely reversed with their worst moments magnified starting then. The editing on Bravo is so completely obvious. Not saying that Sam and Cliff weren't initially being edited to be nicer or more professional or what-have-you than they really were, because for all I know, they certainly could've been.
My question is, why did people think she liked and stuck up for Marcel anyway? That one tiny clip from the TGIF episode where she said he was okay? That could've been from week 1 and the only positive thing she ever said about him, for all we know. All we see is what Bravo wants us to see. They for whatever reason had the agenda of wanting to portray Elia as the "nice" one that stuck up for the geeky little weirdo (who sorry, I don't find any more endearing since his edit got cleaned up), so they only aired footage of her that supported or at least didn't deny such a scenario. Too bad Elia, aside from the first challenge, never actually stood up for Marcel when the others hated on him, so Bravo didn't have real footage of this to air.
Another great example of an "inexplicably prop up Elia" ep -- the catering Mia vs Cliff extravaganza. That episode by all rights should've focused on Elia's dumbass decisions as a leader -- since it seemed perfectly clear to their entire team that ELIA was leader, NOT Cliff -- yet the editing led many viewers to think it was actually Cliff leading the whole time, and thus his failure. Ooookay. Not really defending Cliff here, as he's as flawed as the rest of them, but just saying the editing blaming him for decisions that Elia made as their team's leader was manipulative of Bravo, and an indication to me at the time that he was on his way out.
"When Ilan is talking in his confessional "and then we thought, since it was our last night, we'd ask to borrow a camera ...", he is clearly discussing the act of filming themselves in the PAST TENSE, and Ilan STILL HAS HAIR.
More proof that the BRAVO monkeys screwed with the timeline."
Ha, so did the shaving party happen a completely different night? I wouldn't put it past the editors. I wonder if the reason they aren't having a reunion this year is because they've fucked with events and timelines so much this season to prop up and/or put down certain chefs that they're afraid one of them would bring that up or call bullshit on the whole thing? I know Marisa for example blogged on her site (which promptly disappeared, thanks Bravo KGB) about how the whole lychees thing was screwed around with quite a bit. I know this is reality TV and the famewhores that go on agree to all of this crap, but damn.
I found the original clip with Elia in it on youtube. By the way the blank time date on the bottom left is as hard to add to the cropped footage as say the bravo logo is on the right.
I think the shot of Ilan discussing the events was shot in Hawaii -- he has hair, but it's pretty short. I wish altering the timeline and covering it up were FCC violations -- I'd love for Bravo to have to answer these questions.
Yup. They're covering for Elia.
Picture of doctored shot
I know that the chefs are forbidden to talk about anything major until the season is over, but does anyone know if the gag order extends beyond that? If not it should be really interesting in the coming weeks as they are finally allowed to talk about what really happened & just how busy Bravo was rewriting history.
Hopefully (although personally I doubt it) Bravo learned something from this disaster of a season & in TC3 people will be chosen for their kitchen skills rather than how badly their personalities will clash with the others on the show.
Frankly, I'm done with this season (to be fair I'll probably watch one of the 100 reruns during the week). None of the chefs remaining deserve the title of Top Chef & the contempt that Bravo is showing for the viewers by their creative editing is sickening.
I think the perfect end for this trainwreck would've been to disqualify all four members of the Bully Brigade and scrap the show. But give Marcel $25,000 for making it to the end in spite of the undeserved personal attacks.
A personal friend of Marcel's posted on TWOP. She said Marcel inquired about the changed timeline, and the production team gave him some ridiculous explanation about changing the editing to make things more comprehensible to viewers. Such bullshit!!
Now Sam Talbot is playing revisionist history. He was on TV this morning and said " it was all a lie". Plus, his disgusting interview on BRAVO with Andy Asshat.
If Bravo actually told us viewers the truth, then the situation would not risen to this point. Instead, Bravo creates a misleading timeline then cropped the important scene (Elia with hair) and lied to us.
I won't be watching Bravo anymore.
I viewed the repeat of the episode that was aired immediately prior to the newest episode (1/24/06) and I'm about 98% sure that Elia was still in the clip of Marcel coming back out of the bedroom and smacking the camera. She's kneeling in the bottom right corner. Although I didn't notice her in the previous scene when Marcel first walks away from the camera and slams the door.
On the live watch what happens tonight with Coldickio and Shady Sam a viewer asked about the editing of the timeline. Andy referred to this blog and swore that the integrity of the timeline was upheld in the aired episode (that's not verbatim, but close enough to the bullshit he spewed).
We finally have CONFIRMATION from Elia herself for the timeline flipping.
Listen to Elia's CHOW interview:
http://www.chow.com/stories/10424
(click on second interview)
About Marcel's assault:
-It was a practical joke that was "between the guys"
-Confirms that the editing was backwards: "Marcel went away really upset and i'm like 'we have this machine [clipper] and I wanted to shave my head my whole life'..."
-Talking about that night and shaving her head "I have to say we had a lot of fun that night"
Interviewer: Do you feel bad about what happend to Marcel?...It looke a little sad
Elia: No I don't feel bad because that's not the way it happened..
I didn't help to do it..this was a joke they where playing on him..
Marcel has insulted people and it hasn't been shown..his verbal way of talking to people i think is worse than tryng to shave his head..it was a guys joke, it was in between them"
-She doesn't think it was right that Cliff got kicked off
There's lot's more, including how she believes Marcel hired a hacker to push up his numbers in tv.com polls.
The good stuff begins at the 7:45 minute mark. (You can download an MP3 of the interview)
I have all of season 2 so far on my iPod as we don't get Bravo. The episode I downloaded you can clearly see Elia with hair. There may be a more recent "revised" version available now.
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