Design Starred

While R Man is fascinated with such gritty TV fare as Oz and Dexter, I prefer the decorating shows on HGTV. As I've pointed out before, they always have a happy ending and the crappy homes they reveal people huddled in allow me to feel terribly superior.

Jason over at night is half gone encourages me to reveal that my fave is Design Star, a game show masquerading as the search for the host of a new HGTV show. While the promos for the show emphasize the design talent of the competitors, the stunts that lead to the weekly eliminations would stump the ghosts of Billy Baldwin and Dorothy Chandler. Combined. The challenges always involve bizarrely short time limits and restrictions on supplies that boggle the mind. One memorable one required everyone to whip up a room from stuff they found in a pet shop or auto supply house.

Instead of design, what the show really emphasizes is how well the contestants perform on camera as a host. That, after all, is the true point; you can see HGTV realizes as long as the winner can handle pointing at before and after shots, the producer and other off-camera talent can deal with the actual decorating.

This is the third season winding down (tomorrow night is the finale. Can you hardly wait?) I've noticed each year the cast tends to be pretty consistent. There's always some wacky, artsy type who gets tossed early; some hateful bitch who sticks it out almost to the end cause she's all the drama and the audience hates her; some earnest sweet straight girl who cries and talks about the family she misses so much so the wifeys at home can have someone to identify with; a bitchy nellie queen for comic relief; and a prime piece of hunky eye candy for visuals.

Two years ago the eye candy won, yay, while generating a storm of pissy message board comments from the heartland complaining that he was a) too wiling to take his shirt off (completely insane considering this boy's luscious tits and shoulders and b) that he's "too gay." Who did these people think most of HGTV's audience is? Nuns with a freak on for redecorating?
David Bromstad, too gay? Too bad.

Even better, shortly after this season's humpiness got the boot, it came out that he had performed gay porn a few years ago. And not just any porn, but some substantial, whack-a-mole S&M and bondage cinema verite. Thrilling. If only I could get X-Tube to work I’d be able to report more authoritively on its quality.
Mikey V, too bad? Gay too.

The producers should be making novenas of gratitude for this little peccadillo since otherwise the show this year has mostly been notable for how astonishingly dull the decorating has been. Tidy is about the best you can say for these efforts. One particularly galling show had them doing competing suites in the Grand Ole Opry Hotel in "shabby chic." God knows they nailed the shabby part. I hate shabby chic, it's such a cliche and all that ratty, peeling paint just makes me wonder how anyone can dust it.

The only other style demonstrated has been some vaguely contemporary, sort of minimal ho-humnism. Sleek, square, low slung in chocolate browns and reds with some Asian piece thrown in. Wow. Sure didn't see that coming. Nosiree. The cover of every Metropolitan Home since the first George Bush presidency, who'd a thunk it?

So of course, after nothing but snark about the show, you can count on finding me glued to it Sunday night, rooting for the muscley bald guy. I am so there.