In some inexplicable twist of fate, Meg Caswell came onto the scene this season of Design Star and produced:
A horrible room for the White Box Challenge:
Meg Caswell's white room challenge design.
One of the most unattractive headboards in Design Star history (second only to J Allen’s earlier in the season):
Meg Caswell's fugly headboard in the fourth episode.
Another lame design:
Meg Caswell's upstairs landing design during the HGTV'd challenge, which looked more like a "before" than an "after."
And there seemingly was no limit to how many fugly rooms she could churn out. They just kept coming:
Meg Caswell's decorating disaster in episode 8.
…and coming:
Meg Caswell's garish and dysfunctional tiny house.
Not to mention all of the times she did her constipated chicken dance during the camera challenges.
Who wants to do the hokey pokey?
And the many “design crimes” in her offscreen portfolio:
Frumpy living room designed by Meg Caswell.
Another mostly frumpy living room designed by Meg Caswell.
But now we’re supposed to believe she’s the next Design Star? Give me a break. There was so much evidence to the contrary that this just seems utterly laughable. During Season 4, there was a lot of off-camera grumbling from finalists, who had story after story about how Antonio Balatore received preferential treatment throughout the entire production. It felt like common knowledge to all of them that Antonio had been cherry-picked to win from the get-go, and that the entire season of episodes was shot and edited to support HGTV’s pre-season choice. Since I liked Antonio’s out-of-the-box designs and his ability to entertain, I had no beef with that. But it seemed like this was another season where the head honchos had already chosen Meg before the cameras even started rolling, and I do take issue with picking someone who clearly does not demonstrate the level of design talent that many of her co-finalists possess.
I’m either an idiot or an idealist, but I’m a viewer who wants this title to mean something. I want to see the best designer win. And that did not happen this season.
Karl Sponholtz, you were ROBBED.
Unlike Meg, Karl only had one bad episode. Karl’s sole contribution toward design badness all season long was this gawd awful flower arrangement:
Karl Sponholtz' fugly flower arrangement.
The rest of the season, Karl consistently turned out smart designs:
First episode: Karl Sponholtz' bonus room wall mural.
Karl Sponholtz' white room challenge design.
Karl Sponholtz' HGTV'd bedroom design.
Karl Sponholtz puts a new twist on an old design element, creating bookshelves out of books.
Karl Sponholtz' tiny house was packed with sophisticated design elements and was the most multi-functional space of the entire episode.
To see the judges compare these two designers’ work and continue to effusively praise Meg is just beyond me. But then we know firsthand Vern Yip will call anything “beautiful,” as long as he’s getting paid to do it.
Vern Yip's organ meat collection for little old ladies, brought to you by the center of suckage that is HSN.
The final nail in the coffin for me was Meg’s show concept, Design Crimes. Every single one of those HGTV personalities knows full well you can’t go on TV and accuse homeowners of committing design crimes. Nothing is a greater turnoff than starting out of the gate by insulting the client, yet they all put their smiley faces on and gushed over how brilliant the idea was. What a crock.
I feel like a fool who was duped into watching thirteen hours of bullsh*t. I hung in there week after disgusted week because I believed there was no way there wouldn’t be some outstanding win at the end. To quote former President Bush, “Fool me once, shame on–shame on you. Fool me–you can’t get fooled again.” I won’t play the fool next year. If the next cast doesn’t BRING IT, I’m not going to waste my time watching it. And I’m certainly not going to give HGTV free PR by writing about some sucky show.
End of rant.
Stay tuned for my post about the Season 7 casting process, coming soon.