'Top Design' Recap Episode 2

Guest Blog Post by Stephen Lenz

First things first ... I fell asleep Wednesday night so I had to watch "T-Dez" on the trusty TiVO. But I didn't have to try too hard to avoid hearing who was kicked off the island because the major news outlets and blogs (well, except this one, right Kenny?) aren't really covering this show yet. You just wait until one of the designers poisons Todd Oldham's dog and THEN we'll have a hot show on our hands!

Okay, so we start off the show with one of those serious moments in reality shows when someone says they have an announcement to make ("I'm an alcoholic! I'm leaving! I'm Alexis Arquette!") and then they edit in people making fake shocked reactions … except this time John announces he's HIV-positive and that his doctors loaded him with testosterone before the show and that's why he treated spectacled Michael like crap in the last challenge. That's not funny.

Then woodland creature Todd comes in and explains that they have $8000 to design rooms for some discriminating clients and they are only getting a few bits of information about them, like one is a figure skater and another has a cat, and immediately I know that these must be kids, but nobody on the show realizes this and (again) this proves I am smarter than everyone on reality TV <breathe>.

Sure enough they go shopping at that expensive furniture place that looks like a stadium outside and a convention center with good lighting inside…. all the while thinking they are shopping for adults <there's your kicker>. And then they go back and Todd invites the clients in and the room erupts in "Omigod, children!" and Todd goes on to tell the designers that they only have $300 more to spend on the room (at Target, natch) and that the people who won last week will have more money to spend and they will have to use twin beds and they have to stand on their heads and shear sheep while doing it. So the last episode was too straight forward and now it’s all CAH-razy and I have to have my husband explain it to me because I am totally lost.

From here the designers complain about not having enough time or money and I respond with, "Dudes, you only have three walls and no windows to worry about, so chill!" Fast editing and people bumping into each other follows and John almost has a breakdown during twelve "Next on 'Top Design'!" promos and I think "Oh, the sh*t's going down" because John’s room apparently doesn’t have a floor.

The judges (who I still don't know) walk around the three-walled windowless rooms and go on and on Michael Kors-style how awful and "assisted facility-style" Michael's room is and how great soul patch guy #1's pirate room is even though one judge rightfully points out that the kid's going to like pirates for three more weeks and then hate his parents till death for doing this to him.

So John (left) gets kicked off and that leaves me feeling really bad for him, but I think that the clever editors and producers intended that. And when they show the faces of the other contestants I say "Wait – are they even on this show?" so that does not bode well either. Regardless, I'll watch episode three because Jonathon Adler has the potential to be the most evil TV star ever this side of Joan Collins. Now that's top design.

Tags: Top Design, TV, Bravo