Design Me A Star: Week 2

I have to hand it to the producers of HGTV’s Design Star as they’ve clearly been taking notes on how to ratchet up the drama. In just the second episode they threw the designers the dreaded kitchen challenge. For those of you new to Star, this is the challenge that derails the dreams of the aspiring designers year in and year out. Last night’s episode continued to bear that out.

Continuing to tightrope the line between smarmy and charming, host Clive Pearse introduced the designers to the challenge by having two competitors pick teams playground style. Keep in mind that Clive did not inform the designers what exactly the challenge was. It was because of this little fact that I was so surprised by non-descript Amy’s reaction of joy and elation. Hello Amy, let me introduce you to the reality TV construct where every week the challenges are harder and the team leaders are more likely to be eliminated then their underlings. So Amy and week 1 stand out Nathan were the two leaders and Amy continued to surprise by not choosing set designer and construction “expert” Antonio first. This was the first of many poor decisions. Nathan meanwhile smartly chose Antonio and then followed that up with the confusing pick of Jen V2.0, a so called color expert who nearly went home week one. Age-fibber Torie was the last one picked, which I suppose made sense given that she was the last one added to the cast, and lucky for Nathan ended up on his team.

Neither team impressed much this week. The nicest things in both kitchens were the appliances, granite and cabinets all of which should be easy for the novice designer. Team Nathan gave Jen free reign and for the second week in a row she displayed a complete lack of color skills. Granted their family gave them the odd request to mix Italian and Moroccan colors but still the color scheme was a huge mess. Torie did one of the only stand out pieces of design for either team by solving the backsplash issue with stamped foil. Meanwhile, Nathan completely failed as a leader and seemed more concerned about having a good time. Thankfully Antonio saved the day and ensured the nuts and bolts of the job got done. Kudos to him as well for asserting himself and making sure he got to participate in some of the design choices. Nathan further sank down in the ranks as he allowed Jason to pick out the styling accessories. Jason overcrowded the space with a mish-mash of pieces that looked like he just chose one piece out of every aisle at World Market. Please tell me how a Buddha fits in an Italian/Moroccan room. Still the team at least finished their room which cannot be said for Team Amy. The entire team was unfocused and sloppy. Tall guy Dan seemed to have his act together but other than that they all did some sloppy work. Amy was a complete failure as a leader and week one problem child Tashica once again showed a lack of skill by failing to complete any task including the staging. The kitchen had broken glass, crooked cabinets which lead to crooked granite, missing handles and not a single accessorie. Tashica had a hand in all of those problems. That’s why the judging process turned out to be a surprise.

The judging this week furthered my belief that the producers are amping up the drama. Antonio and Dan were predictably singled out for their strong efforts as was Torie. The bottom four were Nathan, Tashica, Amy, and Jen. Hopefully Nathan will rebound from this and learn from his mistakes as I enjoyed his design in week 1. The judges let both him and Jen off the hook since their kitchen was complete. I was prepared to see Tashica go home after spending another week in the bottom two and clearly adding no value to her team. While Amy certainly deserved to be in the bottom two I figured the fair thing to do would be to give her a second chance. Of course the best plot device would be to keep Tashica and let the remaining designers hate on her for sending Amy packing and dread having to work with her. Surprisingly that’s just what the judges did and if the faces of the remaining designers was any indication, the end result should be worth it. Ahoy, there be drama ahead!