Heather Havrilevsky weighs in with her assessment of Top Design. For the most part I couldn't agree more. I was especially pleased that her opinion about the outcome was the same as mine: as annoying as she was---like the officious girl on your dormitory hall who thought she was the boss of everything all the damn time--- Carisa's final product was better and she should have won it all. I was also glad to have my admittedly uncredentialed opinion of the designs confirmed.
[quote begins from Salon, Heather Havrilevsky, I Like to Watch]
.Yes, the fine contestants on this show, who had so little to say that the producers were reduced to showing them bickering with their appointed carpenters over and over again, spent most of the season strolling around the PDC's indoor mini-mall, searching for a stodgy-looking chaise or a boring mahogany ensemble that looked like a "dinette set" straight off "The Price Is Right" Showcase Showdown....
Now, it's true that...even though the contestants were pretty dull, the show did have its moments, like when aspiring designer Goil blurted, practically through tears, that he didn't want to be "a Jan Brady" (meaning wishy-washy, emotional or envious?) or when Carissa narrowly avoided allowing her reckless carpenter, Carl, to inadvertently smash to little bits the rustic dinette set on loan from the PDC....
The final challenge was at least new and ambitious: Design a loft that you'd like to live in. While Carissa's black, white and red-all-over loft looked like a funky, reasonably skilled imitation of a room you'd find in Jonathan Adler's design book, minus the chartreuse glazed dildo-shaped vase and the 3-foot-tall Dalmatian statuette, Matt's loft was the usual subdued, somnambulant showroom. Yes, the judges praised the pink girly bedroom for his daughter and the eggplant-colored walls and the whimsical hanging lamp in the bathroom. But other than those two rooms, all we saw from Matt was decent taste and nice furniture placement. At least Carissa designed a sunken platform bed (covered in Adler-esque pillows, of course) and some shelving (straight out of West Elm catalog, but still). If the whole point was merely to shop for dumb furniture, why not just call it "Top Consumer"?... In short, "Top Design" often felt cheap, lazy and unimaginative, as if the producers only had a few days to create and staff a show that they were told should be "just like 'Top Chef' or 'Project Runway,' except it's about design!"...
[quote ends]
The only thing I didn't agree with---though in principle and not in fact----was her ripping on my imaginary friend and counselor, Todd Oldham ("painted bright orange"). That, Ms. Havrilevsky, was simply the outward and visible emanation from his inner radiance which---as I noted---is descended straight from the "glowing, peach-tinted heavens."
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