Sun, sand and stupidity

Is it just me, or is there something a little cruel about airing an episode about beach cabanas while the northeast quarter of the country is covered in sleet? (Totally unintentional, but still, a tad cruel.) It's as if Top Design were mocking everyone who's had to thaw out a frozen-solid dog dish this week. But things weren't all hot and sunny; while Michael's improved attitude has taken him off my irritant list, Carisa and Ryan have both barged their way onto it.

This is one of those team challenges that competition shows like so much and I like so little. I understand that putting people on teams automatically increases the amount of drama, but as I've said before, I don't watch this shit for the drama, I watch it for the creativity, and dividing 9 people into 3 teams means we get 2/3 less creativity in that episode. Grrrrrr.

What do we get instead? People snipping at each other and damaging their team, people not challenging wobbly ideas and damaging their team, and on occasion, people getting along and putting together something that's pretty but that utterly fails at its purpose. Let's take each one in turn.

The show's beginning interviews set up Carisa and Ryan as the main players. Each of them thinks they're the shiznit at what they do and gets really condescending when someone offers a different opinion. Ordinarily, I'm happy for pairs like this to just keep the hate contained to one social unit of misery. But then they gotta bring my man Goil into it. The team of Carisa, Ryan and Goil is given the task of creating a beach cabana that fits the image of St. Tropez.

Right off the bat, Goil starts designing this amazing architectural sculpture to serve as the cabana structure. I think he might have had a bit of an advantage in not knowing what a cabana was before the challenge; that meant he had no preconceived notions to break out of. While Goil is doing his thing, Carisa and Ryan are doing their thing, which is squabbling. I think the snit begins when Carisa wants to go shopping for furniture, but Ryan announces that he'll do it and sends Carisa to buy fabrics.

Don't get me wrong, Carisa is a complaining, ill-tempered noodge throughout the episode. But Ryan manages to work my nerves even worse. I think the editors might agree with me on that, though. When he actually says, "My rooms are, like, 'ha-bluuuurgh!'" (I think he meant to say 'ka-blow,' but hey, I'm not even a set designer), the editors cut to a shot of the stark room he did last week, as if to say, 'Really?'.

Somehow, they manage to put the cabana together (I suspect that Goil did a lot of the work on this one). If you start at the top of it, it looks beautiful, daring, elegant. The white canvas drapes evoke yachting, which St. Tropez is known for, so point to Carisa for choosing those. Then, you get to the furniture and ...oh. Now, in fairness, the designers had to shop at Pier 1 for their furnishings, so it's not like they had an infinite selection. But still, wicker? The red isn't working terribly well here, either, so let's deduct that point I gave Carisa earlier.

But Carisa still comes out ahead of Ryan in the race for not-the-suckiest, because of this moment:

That's right, folks: left to his own devices at Pier 1, Ryan bought a shitload of candles to set out in the sun. 'Cause you know what's missing on a beach in the middle of the day? Light.

Despite all these errors, Team St. Tropez didn't lose. They didn't win either, of course; that honor went to Felicia, Andrea and Michael, who created a cabana set in Tahiti.

To my astonishment, Michael was actually rather charming this episode. He might have done that rarest of things on a reality show: learned a lesson. He might also have had an easier time working with women than working on his own or with John, and the women he worked with might have helped him a lot due to their additional decade of experience each. Still, he seemed genuinely helpful and enthusiastic this episode, so it was nice to take him off probation. (That's his butt in the picture, poking out of a mattress he created.)

When you approach the winning cabana from the bottom up, your reaction is rather similar to approaching the St. Tropez cabana from the top down, only it ends with a "huh?" instead of an "oh, dear." Team Tahiti created their cabana to look like it was on a pier, which I think is just awesome, and very Tahitish. Here, the one piece of wicker furniture looks reasonable, and the gauzy curtains, while they don't provide dick in the way of privacy, call to mind the mosquito netting of the South Seas.

But then you reach the top. Now, there's nothing wrong with your eyes or their ability to process images: Team Tahiti didn't put a roof on their cabana. Let me say that again: they didn't put a roof on it. I'm not entirely sure that means it's still a cabana. Between the sheer curtains and the lack of roof, this isn't really much of a structure at all. If there's such a thing as a Cabana Licensing Board, I'm quite sure this entry wouldn't be up to code. But it won!

The team who didn't challenge each other enough was composed of Elizabeth, Erik and Matt and assigned to create a cabana for Miami. While their design itself was structurally great, combining both indoor and outdoor areas, they failed -- according to the judges, spectacularly -- in choosing the color scheme.

You see that green in Erik's shirt there? They went with a brighter, neon version of that and paired it with eggplant. I completely agree with the judges that such a color scheme doesn't evoke Miami at all. If anything, I think it evokes this guy. And what really has me shaking my head is that Matt said he'd been working in Miami a lot lately, so Matt could come up with many examples of color schemes that would evoke the area, but for some reason, he didn't. (Think pastels, Deco, Cuban influence. I know all that based solely on watching Manhunter, The Specialist and two episodes of Miami Vice.)

Todd Oldham even tells the team of his concerns about their color scheme, but they figure they know more about it than he does. After all, he's only designed interiors for two hotels in Miami. It's not like he'd be a good guy to ask about Miami style or anything. So they barrel right ahead, not only sticking to their wack color scheme, but painting their boards with what I have called "the Stripe of Doom" in that damn citron color.

This is what's so frustrating: that's a good architectural design right there. I kinda like the uneven planks sticking up out of the top; I like the "louver" concept that's carried through the fabric panels and the corners. I think they chose some great furnishings, too. But I've got to agree with the judges: that damn color scheme is killing me. Picture it with all the instances of citron replaced with a pale turquoise (scroll down to PMS 305) and all the purple tones replaced with a palette of deep golds (scroll down to PMS 137). Hell, I don't know, something like that.

I guess the color palette was killing the judges, too, because they send Elizabeth home. In her exit interview, she calls her dismissal "bullshit," and while I think that neglecting to put a damn roof on your structure could easily be called a bigger error, that color scheme was a major misstep. I'm sorry to see Elizabeth go, especially since it means that Carisa and Ryan both get to stay. That's just a little bit cruel too.

Comments

[PolIVamp]

Ah, I totally sided with Carisa. If Ryan had told me his designs were awesome and mine were conservative when the previous challenge had seen me in the top 3 and him in the bottom 3, I would have been a lot meaner than Carisa. Ryan would have been dead to me at that moment.

[stinkylulu]

Ryan's an über-weenie but Carisa is just insufferable. (I still hate her for her "I'd like to bring good design to people who can't afford it" jag on the first ep.) Plus, she's so the producer's suck up -- how many expository diary room segments is she gonna be responsible for before she's booted? Will the editors be able to construct a narrative for the episode without her clarifying commentary?

She was one of my early favorites, based only on bio, but now I realize she's one of the "shit-stirrers" planted for drama. (Note how she and John brought the Toddnote in the first ep.)

I hate this show.
I hate it even more that I'm totally absorbed by its self-conscious shit-stirring puce-iness.

[PolIVamp]

Wow, I really didn't see any of that from Carisa. Considering I thought she was going to be eliminated this episode because she hadn't gotten any screentime, I don't see how she could be a drama starter.

However, I don't have a good record with Bravo (had early love for Betty and Ilan before they became dicks), so it is entirely possible that Carisa sucks. But I refuse to let go.