Design Star - Sneak Peak

The HGTV folks were kind enough to send me screeners of the first two episodes of Design Star 2, which starts tomorrow night , July 22, with the audition episode. Generally, I have no interest in the "road to" shows and rarely watch the audition tapes. They seem more painful than fun. I don't enjoy watching people make themselves look silly for their shot at stardom. This audition episode isn't much different, although I did enjoy watching the judges. While they are still "judging" the auditions, they do get to show their kind and compassionate sides, especially with the weaker auditioners, more so than when they are judging the actual competition. Back in the judges chairs are Vern Yip, Cynthia Rowley and Martha McCully.

Starting off where Top Design ended, the first team challenge is for the contestants to design their own living space (as it was in Season 1)- an industrial loft space with wide open expanses, views of the city (Las Vegas) and even a sunken pit.


Unlike Top Design, where the final two had several months to plan and a $65K budget, the Design Stars had 28 hours and $15K to conceive and carry out their plan. Plus, they had to work within a team structure, share and play well together.

How did they do? Well, we'll see after Episode 2 airs next week.

In full disclosure, I didn't enjoy season 1 of Design Star. I thought some of the contestants were completely unqualified to win - having bad personalities and limited design skills and scope. And I do think all the finalists should be at least capable of winning from the get-go. I also didn't like that the judges never visited the spaces they were judging and everything was done via videotape and television monitor. It felt unrealistic, and in fact, cheap. I think, however, this season, they've worked harder to explain this (or I'm just more in tune). Host Clive Pearse says that they are judging each design "as it appears on TV", which is how the judges, and television audience see them. Since the whole point is that the winner will get his/her own design show, then it makes sense to judge the designs in two-dimension rather than three. It's not exactly real-life... but, it's true to itself at least.

More on what I think of the contestants to follow. So far, I'd say they are collectively a better group than the Season 1 finalists. I'm looking forward to watching! Episode 1 airs Sunday the 22nd at 10:00PM on HGTV. Check back here and let us know what you think!