On the Top?

At the very end of January, a new reality competition series was launched on Bravo. Hot on the heels of Top Chef, Top Design swept the recurring audience into its grasp. With the same sort of idea and a different industry, Bravo picked up a new series without losing any momentum.

Quick to assume the style of recent Bravo shows such as Top Chef and Project Runway, the new Top Design worked with the same premise. A little design, some drama, and a competition for real people. Incorporating style elements of the previous shows, Top Design seems like a rerun of the same show tweaked for a new industry. In some ways it is. It works with the idea that has worked for a while now. People like to see real people come and do a competition, get angry or dramatic with each other, and come away with a prize at the end for the winner. People want to see the unique challenges and experience things they’d never do on their own.

Top design opened the doors with a large cast and a twist. The first week, they’d kick off two people instead of the customary one. Of course, the designers are thrown into the first challenge with a vengeance. They can’t meet the client, but he or she is a celebrity. They learn a little about him/her through five objects picked to develop their rooms around. They are put into teams and then the drama begins.

Every Bravo reality show has drama, that’s part of why people watch. They want to see the personal fights between one character and another. The very first fight comes between one of the youngest guys and the oldest. Michael, who’s in his twenties, has no real experience and is quite docile in his manners and designs. John, who’s in his forties, is a very strong, aggressive personality and doesn’t mesh well with Michael. They have a fight and their personalities clash, causing them to be one of the people with the worst designs. They don’t have a good time with the assignment and it sets the tone for the rest of the show, even season. People’s personalities and the clashes they have with each other are the reason people like to watch these shows.

Another plug to the Bravo world is the commercials during the season premiere. The commercials featured “Dirty Dishes,” Top Chef “tell alls” throughout the premiere to draw in the top Chef watchers. The end of the finale for Top Chef and the season premiere for Top Design started on the same night, back-to-back. These little blurbs are insight into the feelings of the Top Chef contestants and were a huge draw to the watchers of the series. They showed things that would never be shown again and were available, predictably, during the season premiere of the new show. This got the viewers to stay tuned and probably interested, since it followed the format of Top Chef and all the others.

There are also little references to the style of the reality competitions. Names were on tags, like color swatches, or paint samples. This was done extensively, though a little differently than Project Runway. Also, the contestants were introduced with little bits of “interview” style information while they moved in on the first episode. This is indicative of a reality competition in the way that everyone is introduced. The beginning of every reality competition introduces the contestants as they move in. So in that way, this is a very conventional competition. Also, the design studio where they do their sketches is almost identical to the studio that the contestants had on Project Runway. So many other little elements of the classic reality competition were thrown in.

In a way, this is a typical reality competition. But in another way, it’s a creative take and a different styling of something that works.