HGTV stop trying to make DesignStar the Apprentice

Hi, my name is Sharif and I’m an HGTV addict. That’s right, I can’t get enough of it. I watch it in the morning, I watch it at night and some times I even watch reruns.

One of the things I like to watch is DesignStar. I’ve watched it from the beginning and have always really enjoyed it – until now. I still enjoy it actually, just not as much. In case you don’t know, DesignStar is a show about a group of people with various design backgrounds chosen to compete for their own show on HGTV.

This is the first season being produced by Mark Burnett, the same guy behind Apprentice and Survivor. I guess for people who like those shows this could be a good thing, the problem is DesignStar has never been like any of those shows. It was quirky, artsy, innovative and talent was able to shine through the reality TV haze. Now that production companies has changed, so has the show. Instead of contestants standing behind paint buckets in the hopes of finding a nice fat budget to work with, or being able to take a room in a large house to design, they now work in large groups where no one individual talent can be seen and roll their luggage behind them to elimination in the exact same way they did/do on Apprentice. The jovial host is gone as well as his signature: “your show has been canceled line.” In place of those things we simply have the judges. That wouldn’t be so bad if Vern Yip, as if in some attempt to mimic Donald Trumps “vicious” business acumen, wasn’t edited to be the head of a tribunal while the other two judges are relegated to knowing glances and head nodding. On top of that, the deliberation between the judges has been dubbed over with “intense” music so the public never has any idea of why the judges (Vern) have chosen an individual for elimination.

I really wonder how we or the judges (Vern) will know who a DesignStar is if every week there are two teams. The old DesignStar had a mix of team challenges and individual challenges that actually made sense. They also used to make over homes for real people like veterans or families in need instead of empty apartments inside of these anonymous New York high rises that we can only assume are owned by Donal Trump (thanks for the insight @shesherara).

Now, instead of being about competition of design individuals, it is literally a popularity contest some times. Worst of all, instead of taking the opportunity to make design accessible, the recent changes really remove the endearing quality the original DesignStar had to offer. Instead of the designers being inspiring and giving insight into the artistic process, the show really is just about what people do to not go home. The audience has much less idea what makes a designer tick and why they make the decision they do. This seems to be counter intuitive to HGTVs programming – but what do I know?

The Apprentice and Survivor, although I don’t watch, have been around forever so I guess they must be doing something right. I just wish they wouldn’t do it to DesignStar.