May
2009
Episode 70 of Upon Further Review!
We’re back by boldly going where no one has gone before–for some cheesecake–in Episode 70 of Upon Further Review! In this show we tie up some loose ends before getting right into the major part of the episode: first we enjoy the food (perhaps not the fat content) at The Cheesecake Factory; second we warp into the new frontier with our review of the new Star Trek movie; and finally, we look at news with a twist (of onion?) as we review the comedy news source The Onion. As always, we appreciate your support of the show–and as always, we thank you for letting others know about it as well! (As usual, podsafe intro music is provided by Sharif (“You’re My Girl”), outro by David Henderson (“We Gotta Go”).)
Reviewed in this show:
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Ive been to a Cheesecake Factory and we really dont have that kind of chain here. Many years ago Dennys opened in Sydney (and failed) and I recall a TGI Fridays for about 3 weeks one year in Melbourne but its gone too. Id guess that most of the reason is that generally for that kind of decent-but-not-outstanding-quality, know-what-youre-going-to-get, family atmosphere dining we go to pubs of which we have approximately 1 for every 5 people in the country. Although most are owned individually (or might be part of a small chain of half a dozen owned by the same person) they share some common traits including similar menus (every pub worth the name does a schnitzel meal of some sort for example) (dont ask me how schnitzels have come to represent everything Australian cos I have no idea). There are a few local chains of speciality dining restaurant (e.g. theres an Italian chain in the city I live in) but theyre generally cuisine-specific and fairly regional. The only place I have ever been to a restaurant other than the US with those menus as thick as a magazine that serve every conceivable kind of meal was in Germany and it was in a town that serviced a large US Army base.
That’s interesting, and it fits with our take on the laid-back nature of Australians generally, many of whom would (it seems) rather hang out in a local pub than go to a big chain restaurant. We can certainly get behind that! As for schnitzel, anything involving German-inspired food is fine with Greg, for the most part…especially spaetzle…mmm… :)
Thanks for the comment–we’re glad to hear from you!
T.R.
I enjoyed the show. I’ve never eaten at the Cheesecake Factory. (The first time I heard about it, a friend said he’s going and I asked if they give free samples like at Hershey’s Chocolate Factory.)
I saw Star Trek in a regular theater and didn’t notice the camera jerking around the place. I understand your annoyance with fans nitpicking on every detail, but as you acknowledge there are major plot holes in this film. *** SPOILER ALERT (skip to the next paragraph if you haven’t seen the film yet): The biggest question I have is did all the television shows and movies that we saw happen, or did they retroactively never take place? ***
The onion has funny stuff. I used to subscribe to their podcasts – before I dropped off the face of the earth.
Well, we’re glad you’ve climbed back on to the face of the earth! As for ST–
***SPOILER ALERT!!!!!***
The old episodes never took place because of what happens in the movie, which I must admit is a clever way of getting out of consistency problems (not that it stopped some of the hardcore fans from trying to find some… *rolleyes* ).
T.R.