Top Design (2/7) *open spoilers*

Cafe Society
1

I liked the show a little better this time, although it is still far in charm from Project Runway or Top Chef.

Glad to see John go, glad to see that they are not into creating a villain to sustain interest. The rest of the crew seems to be normal people into design and little more.

The pirate ship room seemed a fair enough choice for the winner.

Which leads us to an interesting side note about this show: There is no showing where these people are staying, no hotel scenes, no behind-the-scenes views for a 3D stereoscopic view. This might improve the show or deprove it, not sure.

Your impressions?

2

That pirate room was too young for a 10 year old - unless his parents are planning on redesigning his room in a year. It might have “grown with” a 6 or 7-year old, but he’s at the top of the age limit for such an overwhelmingly themed room. In middle school (less than a year away) that’ll be baby-ish.

As much as I don’t like Michael’s personality - that room looked rather like the one I “designed” for myself when I was 11. And I loved it.

Loved Goil’s & Matt’s rooms.

3

Well… the challenges seem to be a bit more intellegently conceived in that they compensate a bit for the restrictions.
Let me think a bit for more faint praise…

I did read the blogs for some insight and it seems they are trying to compress the challenges into a day or so. The rooms are finished in the afternoon then the judges come in and the verdicts are handed down around 4am. Seems like a perfect recipe for gen-u-ine reality tv diaster/melt down of the first order. Not pretty.

The show is not on my ‘must-see-tv’ list.

4

So I had trouble sleeping last night and gave this a second chance. It sucked a bit less (or I am getting used to it). The people is still the ugliest bunch I have seen on TV.

I personally liked the orange jungle room a lot better than the pirate disney prop. It was more of a room and the problems it had (all the edges) were obviously a matter of time constraints more than a design failure.

I had a laugh every time they criticized the room with all the black and immediately switched to the little girl holding the black fabrics and saying “I love this!”

And the cat room could have been excellent with only a few minor touches. The climbing platform pole was a bit too much, and the cat ledge looked too empty, sure. But the room had a great feel, I think. Maybe more natural colours would have helped.

I doubt I will stay this late again for it, but will definitely make an effort to catch the next episode when they rerun it at a better time.

5

Looks like this show has inspired mega Doper interest. :rolleyes:

6

yawwwwnnn I’m sorry, were you saying?

7

Well, I watched the last episode, and sad to say, I’m not very intrigued. It’s more than the format, though.

HGTV’s “Design Star” was certainly much more compelling. So that got me thinking.

Is it because everyone on “Top Design” is already a professional and, with the exception of Michael and Goil, roughly in the same age range?

Is it because “Top Design” takes itself much more seriously than “Design Star”? That’s not to say people didn’t take “Design Star” seriously because they did, but they were certainly having fun doing it. The TD group having fun?!? What’s that?

The lack of drama? OK, it’s early in the show’s run, so what’s not to say something will happen? But honestly, the contestants don’t seem to be the type to instigate anything, which is fine in some ways, but it makes for bad TV.

On the one hand I like the show’s premise. I like Todd Oldham as a host. But it needs something, and I’m not sure what. Less pretentioness, perhaps?

8

Well, there’ve only been two shows, but here’s what I think, kiz — Good concept, bad execution.

I like the idea - lots of people like to look at cool rooms. And most people end up designing the interior of their own houses. Should be a winner, but…

I think that this show has to be compared to the network’s other two reality TV shows: Project Runway and Top Chef. And I think when you compare it, the inferiority of this show becomes apparent in two ways, which I am going to refer to as hosting and the black box concept.

Hosting -

Project Runway has Tim whats-his-name in the mentor role. He’s more personable than Oldham and more engaging. It also has Heidi Klum (supermodel Heidi Klum!) and other engaging people in the judges seats. The judges on Top Design are horrible. They seem pretentious, they seem unable to express their likes/dislikes, and they are definitely unable to convince me why they think that Room A tops Room B.

Top Chef has the hot model as the host. This year it was Salmon Rushdie’s wife, before that I think it was Billy Joel’s wife. Both have been terrible. Absolutely vacuous and terrible - and it’s utterly irrelevant. They serve as a focal point for observing the show, and a draw for boyfriends and husbands who are forced to watch the show. Top Design is conspicuously lacking such a temptress. Back to the judges, Top Chefs judges are, while annoying and drama-manufacturing, still able to express their likes/dislikes and make me understand why one thing I can’t taste is better than another thing I can’t taste. Baffling how they do that, but they do. As I noted above, Top Design hasn’t been able to pull that off.

Black Box Concept -

This is a little elusive - but here’s the gist: Top Design is a Black Box. We put in the designers, we give them some money and PRESTO! Out comes a room! Oh, sure we see them paint a little and pick out furniture, but we don’t really get to vicariously participate in what they’re doing.

Project Runway and Top Chef are different. On Project Runway, you see the cloth, you get the challenge limitations, you hear Tim’s criticisms, and you think “if I could sew, or make dresses, or had any idea how they do what they do, what would I do?” Then, as they make choices, you can critique those choices because it’s fairly obvious how to get from concept to finished dress. And they make it blatantly obvious when someone is screwing up. On Top Chef, they have to cook a sensual dessert and someone starts talking about making a pickle foam. You recoil, because you have a concept of how to make a sensual dessert and pickle foam is so far from that concept. There’s a sense of participation - of what would I do? Are these people doing something like my idea? Will these peoples’ concepts work?

There’s just a sense of participating in the challenges that occurs on Project Runway and Top Chef, that they haven’t nailed on Top Design. Or even approximated in my opinion.

And I’m out.

9

Will any of them ever imply a window?

I agree that the pirate room has a very short shelf life - but will say that I worked for a while in a very affluent community and those folks DID redesign kids rooms with alarming frequency.

I wanted Goil’s room to win.

It seems possible to me that I’ll like Top Design better when there are about half as many contestants and we can see more of what the judges say in each room. Based on this week though I might jump back in a few weeks from now rather than keep Top Design in the rotation.

10

That’s what I think too. Delete few people so we can watch a handful of designers work and it will be more interesting.

11

Jonathan Adler, the top judge, is the one with the personality, it’s a pity he ain’t the host.

12

I think you are right. From the first episode I thought Todd was awfully . . . hmmm, ‘transluscent’ as a host. He seems to lack substance or depth or solidity. He seems to like the contestants and I am thinking he’s the same pretty cool guy he was when he was doing the fashion show on MTV but there is a lack of something. The Potter seems to be full of it though. I find Adler’s blog a bit Adler-centric but I read them looking for insight on what really happened.