Sat, January 18, 2003

Tonight the astonishingly popular TLC show Trading Spaces achieved a landmark by televising its first ever "live reveal," returning the rightful homeowners to their rooms in front of a live television audience. The live show originated, as such spectacles often do, from Las Vegas, and featured the designs of Trading Spaces mainstays Doug Wilson and Hilda Santo-Tomas. Holding the whole thing together and carrying the live segments on her shoulders was Paige Davis, and handling the carpentry was the gallant and winsome Amy Wynn Pastor – whom I will henceforth, more than ever, make it my purpose in life to marry.

The show's producers made the wise decision to run tonight's episode almost exactly like all the others. Trading Spaces is one of those happy accidents: a reality TV show that manages to be engaging and realistic without being hard-to-follow unpredictable. There is a formula, and it works. Because the show is built on that same framework week in and week out, the unpredictable elements of the show are kept in safe, predictable boxes and made palatable to the viewer. The show has an airy second-or-third-take quality that says "We're more concerned about this being fun and watchable than making it absolutely real." It's TV-reality, not reality-reality, and as a result it feels less condescending and more polished at the same time. Another part of the success is the team: the designers are all talented (in their own way) and personable and as the host, the effervescent, snappy taskmaster Paige Davis has done an excellent job of all-but-filling the shoes of original host Alex McLeod. Alternating carpenters/dreamboats Ty Pennington and Amy Wynn Pastor each bring their own sensibilities, but both add to the show tremendously. The show's sense of humor is grown-up without being adult. It's drier and more engaging than so many shows that pander, taking the audience out of the humor by aiming too low. As a result, the viewer feels drawn in and becomes part of the fun. And because of the budget constraints ($1000 per room per episode), a handful of the design ideas can actually be carried out at home, making Trading Spaces an actual how-to show as well.

So, TLC/Banyan knew better than to tamper with a good thing. Only a couple of showy Vegas twists were added, and they added an air of spectacle without interrupting the action. An Elvis impersonator was largely ignored as he serenated the industrious homeowners with a modified-for-DIY version of "Amazing Grace," while Penn & Teller did a card trick with Amy Wynn (for once, I'm not sure who I'm more jealous of!) and "personality" Robin Leach stopped by to toast the merry workers. All of which graciously consumed less than three minutes of air time.

Doug and Hildi both delivered attractive designs – not their most restrained offerings ever but certainly well-coordinated, which is among the reasons that keep the two of them on the list of my favorite designers. (A sense of cohesion is something that fellow designer Frank Bielec usually manages not to master.) Doug rolled out (or rather trowelled out) his Venetian plaster wall treatment, which is unconventional but looks nice, and added Vegas-style "stripper poles" to form the posts of the bed, capping it off with an oddly-proportioned round armoire by Amy Wynn. The only element of his room that seemed a little off to me was fabric; the bed comforter looked very nice but the draperies were such an electric blue that they seemed distracting from the more earthen room.

Hildi's room was inspired by a print she bought in London and endeavored to give the room an architectural, deco-style look. The print was really beautiful and the room was interesting but missed the point of the print by a little. Amy Wynn crafted some soffits that matched those in the print nicely, but they were inexplicably robbed of their gentle curve at some point in the installation process (time constraints?) and blended into the wall because they were painted the wall color rather than a complementary blue like in the print. The orange tile floor turned out great, but the other colors were a little brighter than necessary, particularly in the fabric.

The work segments of the show were great as always, particularly with Doug and his dry, sarcastic brand of humor. This episode had great homeowners who were all really good at playing along. The live segments of the show weren't all that different than they otherwise would have been, except that without the ability to edit, or use the show's patented "false cut," it meant that Paige had to work harder to control the flow of the responses and the timing of the reveal. The super treat of the live approach was that Amy Wynn and the designers showed up at the very end!

Also (I'll be curious to find out if this was a DirecTV exclusive), during the midnight rebroadcast TLC ended up airing a few minutes of "tech rehearsal" footage, in which the producers acted out their impressions of Paige and the homeowners in order to prepare the cameras and director for the live reveals. Surely an accident, but an interesting tidbit both in terms of the technical aspect and getting an idea of how the homeowners look in the eyes of the show's producers!

Was the live element a huge difference? No. Did it make the show more fun? Absolutely. (Is asking and answering my own questions annoying? Hellyeah.) Not because of the "live," but because of the "event" status. The show was recently in London with the carpenter from British version (and inspiration) Changing Rooms, and that went swimmingly as well. An "event level" episode like Vegas wouldn't be sustainable for every week, but the glitzy promos in and out of commercial were great and the guest appearances were fun. I guess what was the most enjoyable about it was the thought that the show is trying to keep fresh and explore new directions. Trading Spaces has become wildly popular in a very short time frame, and it would be easy to rest on that or to overdo the changes as the show grows. It's encouraging that the producers have a handle on what about the show should remain rock-solid and what can be ramped up now and then for extra fun.

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