Mikey Likes TV

I don’t know what was more disappointing about last night’s Top Chef finale – Ilan’s completely undeserved victory or the shady circumstances of his win. Actually, it was definitely the circumstances! Sam Talbot had been favored to win by myself, a poll of viewers and probably most of all by stoner host Padma Lakshmi, who was choking back tears last week when she told him to pack his knives in part one of the finale. Sam is extremely talented and charming, so when he showed up last night as one of Marcel’s sous-chefs, it looked like Ilan was going to get blown out of the saffron-infused water.

But Sam ended up being more of a liability than an asset to poor Marcel. In lieu of focusing his contempt on Ilan, who completely stole his spot in the finale, Sam may very well have taken Marcel out of the running with trash-talking at the elimination table and stolen credit for Marcel’s most well-received dish. I’ve never had sea beans before, and I never care to if they’re soaked in the bitter brine of betrayal.
When it looked as if it wouldn’t get any worse, the promise of “never before seen” chef-on-chef snark during the commercials of Bravo’s premiere episode of Top Design was enough to entice me.

If opening credits were ever indicative of a program’s overall quality and tone, they are on Top Design. In what I hope is some producer-sanctioned ditty and not a song that exists in full somewhere, bizarre nineties techno music introduces us to the contestants while a robotic woman pants and moans a series of ahs and heys. By the time the show actually starts, I am on the floor laughing with no chance of getting back up before the end of the hour. Not that anything else is funny – the boredom is so suffocating that moving back to the couch would require energy I simply can’t spare.

None of these folks really break the Bravo mold. Over the first ten minutes we’re introduced to a series of varyingly eccentric women, flamboyant gays, would-be gays and one self-loathing gay. The only relief comes in the form of 35-year-old skateboarding Ryan, who, despite giving off the air of an archetypal douche bag, is the only person who offers any sort of intelligent behind-the-scenes commentary. There’s also Lisa, who has the potential to be the voice of black wisdom, but she mostly just looks like a middle-aged Storm from X-Men. Given Marcel’s resemblance to Wolverine, I could easily explore the correlation between the Bravo lineup and X-Men for several hours, but I’ll digress.

Todd Oldham shows up as the much-hyped host, trying to prove that he can offer us more than an affordable line of Target linens. He’s not as entertaining or fun to look at as Heidi Klum or Padma, but he does seem genuinely kind and sympathetic to the contestants, like a poor man’s Tim Gunn. He quickly explains the first challenge and we discover how flawed and essentially useless this show is.

In theory, a show about showcasing interior design would involve redecorating homes, offices, restaurants and any other spaces we encounter in everyday life. Project Runway produces articles of clothing that end up at Banana Republic or on in and advertisement in a magazine. Every episode of Top Chef sees the preparation and execution of different types of meals, and it’s too silly to explain the relevancy of food. But on Top Design they’re apparently just decorating sets in a warehouse; windowless, three-walled rooms – identically empty waiting to be identically average, like an Ikea showroom.

The whole point of reality TV is the infinite space we’re allotted; reality has no boundaries. But like the last episode of a laugh-track sitcom, where the cast walks out and smiles for the audience, Top Design not only removes the fourth wall, it exposes the bizarre and naked space that exists without it. The designs are useless because they’re not in real spaces and most likely dismantled a few hours after they’re completed.

What wasn’t explicitly disappointing about the show was just confusing. There’s a transvestite Arquette sibling? He/She has enough clout to be called a “celebrity judge?” Do the Baldwins have a transvestite? And what’s the difference between a designer and a decorator? In most instances the terms seemed to be used interchangeably, but contestant Heather is quick to reference a difference: “I’m realizing we don’t have any design innovation. We’re being decorators not designers.” I suppose she didn’t like being called a decorator when she was voted off at the episode (with Storm!).

It would be nice to think Bravo could acknowledge this creative failure and stop milking the functional art utters, but there will be at least four other tacky incarnations before they give up. We might be only a season or two away from Top Glassblower or Project Blacksmith.