Design Star – Recap & Review – Hollywood, Here We Come

photo: hgtv

Design Star
Hollywood, Here We Come

Original Air Date: July 19, 2009

Patricia Morris Buckley — Associate Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com

How can you begin a design competition with 10 contestants and still have 10 left after an elimination? The answer to that is in a new rule — one of several — for the fourth season of HGTV’s Design Star. Read on to find out why.

Here’s a quick look at the changes:

• The show has moved to LA and the designers are living in a Hollywood Hills pad once owned by Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. Swanky, to say the least.
• There are two new judges joining veteran Vern Yip: Genevieve Gorder of Dear Genevieve and Candice Paul of Devine Design. Our favorite host, Clive Pearse, is back. Goody!
• The judges will decide the final winner, not the viewers. That’s a bit frustrating for us armchair judges.
• At the beginning of the show, the 10 designers got to select one more designer from three potential contestants to make the final number 11. Bad idea, as smart competitors would chose the weakest of the three, right? Welcome aboard Torie.
• For the first challenge, the group had $50,000 to spend on redoing their home, the most ever in Design Star history. Anyone ever heard the word “recession” at HGTV?

Teams quickly formed for the first challenge: three bedrooms, a living room and a dining room. Surprisingly, there was little of the inter-team friction that usually signals the beginning of the cutthroat camaraderie. The list of most cantankerous included Jason, who takes smugness to a new level; Antonio, who rolled his eyes at his team repeatedly and insisted on painting duck decorations in hot pink (which, surprisingly, wowed the judges); and NataLee, who cried multiple times during the four-day challenge.

Some standouts were Nathan and Dan (the later tried out last year and got cut before the show, but seems quite handy and personable — I’ll go as far as to call him out as my personal frontrunner), who made a splash with a huge wall-to-floor-to-wall mural in the dining room. I liked Jany and Torie’s classy bedroom more than the judges. Jason and Jen tried to take risks, but came up with a hodge podge of weird choices. I mean, antelope heads?

The worst room by far turned out to be the one by NataLee and Tashica, not because of their design, but the terrible and incomplete execution. Curtains were taped to the ceiling, a duvet was cut and left with jagged edges and the painted floor looked like a 6-year-old had done it. Who is to blame? Didn’t seem to be one person, but NataLee’s over-the-top emotionalism seemed to indicate she wouldn’t be able to take the competition and she went bye-bye.

Next week is the dreaded kitchen challenge, which has done in many teams in the past. Sounds like great TV!

Have you picked out a favorite yet? Give us your Two Cents…