HGTV Star and Food Network Star! A Recap and Rant...Part Five

DESIGN STAR!! ANIMAL HOUSES!!!

It’s Boys v Girls! Fraternity v Sorority!

Another team challenge where the designers don’t design as much as they shop and sand and spray-paint.

:::yawn:::

Let's rip ...

ANNE & TIFFANY

I think they got the better end of the deal, because the common room at the sorority house looked like an actual living and dining room, albeit with some ugly ass furniture and a fireplace that looked like it was sliding down the wall, and eventually did slide down the wall.

Tiffany was in charge of paint—she went gray, too—and of telling a carpenter to fix the fireplace so she could slap a TV on the wall above. She also bought carpet tiles and laid them on the floor. The floor tiles were a hit—again, shopping and not actual design—while the lack of accessorizing on the remodeled fireplace cost her some points.

:::yawn:::

Anne took charge of telling someone to paint the doors an orange red and then she spray-painted an old buffet black to make it more modern. It looked like an old buffet spray-painted black; not good. She also took the sorority crest and had it printed on a piece of grasscloth wallpaper and hung it on the wall; it was nice, but certainly not worth the raves showered upon it by The Goiter.

So the girls win because of paint choices, a rug, and a TV hung above a new fireplace.

Sheesh, had I known that was all it took, I would'a auditioned.

BROOKS, BORIS & JERIBAI

With three team members it seemed like a shoe-in that the guys would win, right? No, because the producers want two guys and two girls next week, so as soon as I heard Boys v Girls, I knew a guy was going home.

Plus, the guys got the harder room to, um, for lack of a better word, ‘design’: the fraternity’s common room. Pool table, ratty couches, ginormous dining table, florescent lighting, dropped acoustic ceilings. It was a night mare from wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. But, ALLEGEDLY, the fraternity brothers use the space for social events, studying and dining, and requested more seating and more overall sophistication so Team BBJ--which sounds more fun than the actual team--decided it should look like a men’s club.

Boris, of the Big Teeth, was charge with drapes and furniture, so, I guess to him, Gentlemen’s Lounge means black drapes from floor to ceiling, and there’s nothing better for a frat house than a white, WHITE, linen, LINEN, sofa. I mean, ten seconds after the frat boys saw the room, one of them leapt onto the couch with his shoes on. So I guarantee that by now the couch is dark brown; and ripped.

Jeribai, more of a handyman than a designer, took care of sanding and refinishing the huge dining table, and, while he did a good job, is that worthy of your own show? I’ll say it, No. He also was in charge of buying lamps for the space so that the god awful fluorescents didn’t need to be on all the time, and he found some great lamps and sconces at an estate sale; too bad he didn’t find more, because his lighting finds looked atrocious under the clickety clacking of the florescent bulbs that were always on.

Brooks, you know, the teacher, so this was his to lose, took charge of creating a faux paneling effect around the room. I liked it, but I hated the industrial gray color he chose.

Boris had the fraternity’s crest printed and mounted on foam core, but it looked cheap next to the pool table Jeribai and Brooks bought, which they had fitted with a felt emblazoned with a better image of the fraternity’s crest.

Jeribai was safe because he can sand a table and refinish it, and he knows how to buy a pool table; and possibly because he’s cute, which is good for TV.

Brooks and Boris are up to get cut, and I’m thinking it’s Brooks because his Camera Challenge was a d-i-saster. But, it’s The Better To Eat You With Boris whose creepy smile was sent home.

MY TAKE

Out of a sense of Design Masochism, I’ll finish recapping the shows, but I think I’m done with design Star. I have no idea how these designers design because they work in teams and their designs are basically picking paints and buying fabrics.

I really want to see someone be given a space and a client, and then design the room from space planning starting point to a sense of creativity in paint and furnishings and a general idea of what they want to show.

This is about taking two, or thee, people, and letting them loose in a shopping mall and then saying, ‘Take it all back to the job and make a room.’

Plus, how many ways can I say it, but why is The Goiter on this show? She doesn’t have a design show, she has design commercials where she puts a runner on a table and then sets out Glade scented candles, and she’s judging designers?

And Vern, too? Where’s his show?

And, again, what’s a Sabrina Soto besides the comic relief?

FOOD NETWORKS STAR!!! Product Placement!

Okay, I am just now coming back from last week’s elimination of the adorable Viet. I still have my Chad, so the heat index is still high.

This week’s mentor Challenge is to create two products that can be marketed to the public, and the judges, Bobby Flay—who gets the Paula Deen Award for using the word Homeboy to describe Russell—and Giada di Laurentiis, and Adorable Alton Brown, will whittle down their two ideas into one idea that they’ll then present to bigwigs from Target—I always thinks food when I think Target—Kellogg, and Kraft Foods.

CHAD: Baked beans and a Spice Rub. The judges liked the beans but felt the spice rub was just another spice rub, so Chad presented Big Boy Beans to the marketing panel.

He chose a glass jar so you could ‘see’ the beans and one of the execs said it was a waste because, yeah, you couldn’t ‘see’ the beans.

Plus, they had no idea what Chad meant by ‘Big Boy’ and his explanation went nowhere fast.

But, he was safe.

STACEY: Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Cookie and Cayenne Butterscotch Sauce.

Let’s just say without the gluten and the dairy it was a pile of sawdust. So Stacey went with her sauce. And it was good, though her presentation is so robotic that she might call her show Stepford Recipes.

But she was safe.

NIKKI: Eggplant Sauce—which should have been called Baby Diaper Sauce—and Piquillo Pepper Sauce. The color of the eggplant sauce was enough to keep the three judges from even bothering to taste it, so it was Piquillo Pepper Sauce all the way.

Except Nikki could not tell the panel where in the store they might find her sauce, which translates to, she doesn’t even know how to use her sauce.

Still, it was good, and she was safe.

RUSSELL: Bacon Candy and … something else; forgive me, but he had me at Bacon.

Naturally, he was told to go with the Bacon Candy, though I wondered how one might actually sell it, and what one might actually do with it, except eat it like candy, since it’s a chunk of bacon.

Still, Russell invited the panel to Sin with him, and they loved his POV, if not the idea of a Bacon Candy.

He was safe.

DAMARIS: Bourbon Peach Ginger Jam and …. And … I guess I wasn’t that invested this week because I’ve also forgotten her other idea. But it was the jam she chose to pitch, and she pitched it like a rock: dull and landing with a thud.

Sad for her, because the judges keep telling her to tone it down, and then she tones it way down and they ask her to pick it up.

Luckily, the panel liked her jam, so Damaris lives to giggle another day.

RODNEY: Spinach and Goat Cheese Quiche and Mixed Berry Pie. The judges liked his quiche best, but when Rodney pitched it to the execs, he decided it would be best to sing it to them; they had no idea what he was talking, er, singing about. And then his product: Quiche in a Jar. With the dough in Saran Wrap on top; or maybe that was the goat cheese. And that would make the spongy white stuff duct-taped—Yes, I said, duct-taped—to the jar the actual dough.

Quiche.In.A.Jar. And a song. I was surprised Rodney didn’t get the hook.

CHRIS: Roasted Apple and Red Pepper Jam and Sweet Corn Bisque.

There was no sweet and too much heat in the bisque, so Chris went with the jam, though he changed the name to Roasted Apple Ketchup.

His sales pitch was off-putting and went nowhere fast, and then he tosses in a story about being in an apple orchard and then smoking the apples in the largest smoker in Ohio.

Chris needs to learn when to tell a story and when to sell a story.

He’s out.

MY TAKE

At least the competition on this Star!! show has something to do with how they might work on their own shows, and be able to build a brand that makes them, and the Food Network, some money.

But I can’, as yet, see one of these people I would watch. Stacey is too rehearsed; Nikki’s too veggie. Rodney is too …. Pies; Chad is too hot for me pay attention to what he’s doing plus, I’m not a BBQ fan. Damaris is a ditz, but not a funny ditz.

That leaves Russell. I like the idea of his Sins, but if every week he does something with Bacon, Salt, Sugar, Fat and Liquor, well, it’ll get old, and artery-hardening, fast.

Also, is Bobby Flay an arrogant f**k or is it just me? Are Giada’s lips getting thinner? Isn't Alton Brown just adorable when he critiques?