You know that feeling you get when you meet someone and they seem really great, perfect in every way and then you find out that they have just been playing you? Well, I’ve been there in real life much as poor Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, has been when she found out Levi was just not that much into her. No, I’m not going to pick on poor Bristol. After all she is just a kid looking for love. What I’m upset about is the creative programming of two shows that I was meant to fall in love with, HGTV’s “Design Star” and Bravo’s “Work Of Art. Both of these shows have the makings and potential of something really creative and exciting to watch for people like me, creative types that don’t give a damn about reality TV! I was in love at the opening credits only to discover that underneath that great façade was some stupid businessman running the show.
The shows both started out with great promise with an individual challenge where you could get a sense of each artist/designer’s concepts and thought process. Ever since those first shows we have been “treated” to numerous group activities that are most artist’s “HELL”. Each show has been more interested in personalities that don’t get along then in real design work. It really is disappointing to watch these group challenges after group challenges with snarky comments from the judges week after week. On HGTV why did they have to bring in Donald Trump’s son, Donnie Jr., to Design Star last week?
This year is so uninspiring. In past years the designers were forced to be more creative. This year I have yet to witness any real creativity on Design Star. I think the fault has to do with the direction they have decided to take the show. The three judges, Vern, Geniveve, and Candice are all very talented artists and designers. They must be in hell themselves for having to judge this “crapfest”. So what’s wrong with the show? The “challenges” are so lame that the designers have not been able to show any real creativity. I feel like they walk through a store and just pick out a bunch of stuff and put it in a room. There is no thought or imagination! There is no style. It’s so boring. There is nothing notable about any of the wall treatments. Nothing wonderful is built because most are incompetent like the guy that stapled his art project to the floor. I could go on and on. I think they need to have a better art direction or director and fire the producer running it.
The new Bravo show, “Work of Art”, started out just great. I was blown away and just loved the show. It has steadily gone down hill since because the show continues to put these artists together on lame group projects, much like Design Star, that end up looking disastrous. It too is more interested in showing us the “dynamics” behind the artist’s personalities then really letting us into their creative minds. The show pushes the two “characters” Miles, the man that sleeps all the time and Jaclyn, the, oh so “modest” female that is constantly undressing for the camera in her artwork. These two together won the last competition supposedly because it was so cerebral it was over most of our heads. I laugh at the thought of that! I know all of these artists are talented in their own way. I think the show needs to allot a bit more time for the art challenges and it needs to let the artists do individual art challenges. Last night they finally did an individual challenge that left me wondering what the judges were thinking when they kept Peregrine who created a work of art that had drawings that really had no artistic value whatsoever. Well, I digress as judging art is so subjective that it isn’t fair for me to put my input on this part of the show. We don’t all appreciate the same types of art.
I feel cheated as the show started out great. The first couple of shows I just loved. Since then the show has gone progressively down hill. I’ll watch it until the end but right now I am disappointed as the bloom is off the rose and the petals are falling fast.
I really like artistic type shows. HGTV is a great place to showcase this and Bravo as well. However, there is not enough artistic programming. Most of the reality TV shows are just awful. I don’t watch them. These artistic shows have the potential to educate people about art and design but instead they end up making a mockery of it.
The other show that I like to watch in this creative vein is “Project Runway”. The new season just started. This show has been over the top creative in the past even going so far as to make really interesting clothing out of newspapers. It sounded awful but the designers were fantastic in that episode. I hope they don’t mess up the show this year like HGTV did with “Design Star”.
In the future I can only hope that people like me are hired to come up with great challenges for these artistic type shows instead of boring producers that don’t know art or artists. It’s a simple math problem as I was meant to fall in love with these artistic shows. They had me at, “Hello!” With knowledge like that most producers should be able to hold my attention by doing the proper math and giving me what I want….real art, so I can fall in “love.”
