This week started season two of
Face Off, Syfy Channel's competition show that pits up and coming makeup artists against each other. The prize is a
The first thing that struck me about this season isn't the contestants, but the judges. In particular, Glenn Hetrick and his attempts at hiding aspects of his appearance or just overcompensating for things where he's self-conscious. I guess approaching that milestone of hitting 40 is affecting him hard: he's got more piercings, more tattoos, and now has added streaks to his hair to hide thin patches. For someone who works in effects makeup you would think he'd understand that the more you try to hide something that way the more attention you draw to it. He should instead take a page from Patrick Tatopoulos, who isn't hiding anything and as such has an air of authority to him rather than seeming a bit fragile or egoistic.
The second thing that I noticed is we've already got someone to fill the shoes of Frank Ippolito from Season 1 in Jerry Macaluso. While a much more talented artist, Jerry right away came across as not willing to put in effort and work with the rest of his team in the way Frank did last year. Maybe it was editing, maybe it was just an off day for him, but the first thing that came to mind was Frank's unwillingness to actually engage in teamwork. Jerry seemed to be a bottleneck towards getting from concept to actually creating their finished products. And their loss in the first round proves it.
Of the contestants we have the normal mixed bag of personalities. But I hope we can avoid the biggest disappointing thing, namely the ridiculous attempt at hooking up we had last season. Last season's winner, Conor (who was back this season after working with Ve Neill on "The Hunger Games"), was in the middle of some lame drama between two Betty Page wannabees. I hope we can not have that this time around.
In the end, the season seems to have a lot of promise. Between the ability of the contestants this time around there seems to be enough range of ability and ideas that they can keep people coming back. Again, it seems the big problem is going to be not the makeup, but getting over the hurdle of not being able to work as a team in order to compete properly.
