Design Star. Now Completely Talent-free!

Oh god, is he going to yammer on about Design Star again? Why yes, yes, I am. I can't help myself.

HGTV's game show masquerading as a talent-based reality show is back. Back and lamer than ever. A weekly train wreck, I am reduced to watching it solely to see how bad these designettes can be. This week, they took on team decorating a deck because the show is based in Manhattan and I when I think of New York City decorating, patios immediately come to mind, naturally.

As R Man pointed out, the results looked like an outdoor dorm room. And not a very nice dorm room either. Everyone on the show is either stupid and clueless or clueless and stupid. That's it. That's the only two flavors they have available this year. One guy, who was supposed to be taking his "inspiration" from a cello, painted a wall yellow and babbled about Sedona. The fuck? He had to ask the cellist to play something since he apparently didn't know what a cello sounds like. That's inspiration baby.

And the previous show, when they took on two identical apartments and both wound up with, pretty much, two identical apartments. Generic, bland modern with the furniture arranged the exact same way, and both with the living room oriented so the seating has its back to the wall o' windows. You know, living in mid-town Manhattan, who would want to see sunlight and sky and stuff when you can stare at the dead wall holding the front door?

Last year, writing about the show, I said:

"... the contestants seem to regularly fall into immediately recognizable clichés, the easier for the audience to pick out who to root for without wasting precious time on getting to know the characters. There’s the vaguely artsy chick (this year with a kind of biker/punky thang going on,) the obnoxious, overconfident nell, the token black woman, the straight guy to prove not all decorators are poofs, the bleach blonde prom queen with good jewelry, and the humpy eye candy guy. The rest are just fodder thrown in there in order to be voted out. Nobody has cried about how they miss their family yet, and no obvious catfights, but it’s still early."

Gosh golly, it's like I'm psychic, cause all the same cliches have been rolled out this year, with the exception of the token black chick. Maybe they couldn't find one. And I have to say the eye candy this year just does not cut it.

Unless it's supposed to be the silver fox guy.

Either way, there is no comparison with past candyman and my imaginary husband, David Bromstad.

And yet, I will be back each week, deriding the whole circus until the bitter end. This week on the HGTV blog they ask "Who should go home next?" Uh, all of them? Bring back David and Dan and the pornstar cop and start over.