Let's be honest: we all want to love Top Design. The concept's clean and simple, the hosts are kinda hip, and its spot on Wednesday night fills a gaping hole in our entertainment calendars until Project Runway returns. (Or at least until the weather heats up enough to warrant leaving the goddamn house.) But perhaps most importantly, as homosexualists, Top Design really speaks to us. Or rather, it should....
If the Bravo execs were to ask me--and surely they will someday--I'd tell those fatcats in their big fancy Aeron chairs and their three-piece suits and their big cigars, which they have to smoke on the terrace of the skylobby because the building's non-smoking, that there are two simple, fixable problems with the show: the writing and the casting. Allow me to elaborate.
The writing: Okay, so Top Design is produced in Los Angeles, a city of how many million people? And they hired writers who pen alleged catchphrases like "You can stay" (when designers are allowed to stay), "Goodbye" (when they aren't), and "See you later, decorator" (as a final, unnecessary kick in the ass as the loser is leaving the studio)? Did they find those writers in a parking lot at the Galleria? Were they a gift-with-purchase at the Clinique counter? Or was the script drawn at random from entries submitted by third-graders across the country? (Congratulations, Susie Higginbotham of Dothan, Alabama!) The producers need to firebomb the writing pool and start from scratch with native English speakers. Like me, for example.
The casting: Let's start by looking at casting that works--namely that of Project Runway. We've got a lovable mentor in Tim Gunn (everyone's favorite gay high school teacher); a sassy, supersexy, opinionated host in Heidi Klum; and bitchyfunny sidekicks in Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. One big, happy, fashionably dysfunctional family.
Top Design's producers have tried to mimic this arrangement, but like Todd Oldham's bronzer, they're a little off. Todd is, of course, an accomplished designer, but he's got a deeply disturbing teleprompter-of-the mind thing going on. Even when speaking off-the-cuff, he sounds like he was programmed by Stanley Kubrik. He's more wooden than some of that crappy pressboard furniture they use on the show. (Case in point.) And I see the Botox fairy has come to visit. Repeatedly. He looks like a cute, talented, mahogany camel. Please call in Amy Sedaris for an intervention.
Then we have Jonathan Adler--another great designer who's as stiff as brushed aluminum for most of the show. Occasionally he'll revert to human form, but only when he's dishing with the other judges. On the plus side however, those Windsor knots are ferocious.
As it stands, the only likeable people--nay, the only people--on Top Design's panel of experts are Kelly Wearstler (good-natured, friendly, stunning, hot socks) and Margaret Russell (patrician, catty, gorgeous, MILF). They bring originality and spunk to a show that's obviously based on a formula where someone forgot to carry the two.
The solution? Fix the fags. Boot Todd altogether and move Jonathan into the teacher slot. Bring in someone with personality for the judging--someone likeable. Mizrahi comes to mind, though he's not considered an interior designer. At least he's got some range in his vocal cords. Alternately, the producers can hire me.
And the girls? They can, like, totally stay.
