I never watch the Syfy Channel. That might sound like snobbery—-and maybe it is—-but I’m just not down with watching intentionally awful TV movies and unintentionally awful TV shows.
So a small little Syfy reality show about people who want to make amazing puppets for a living wasn’t exactly on my radar until very recently. “Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge” follows 10 skilled creature-makers (still not exactly sure what the technical term for what they do is) as they go about making elaborate creatures like “an alien inside another alien” or a new type of sea creature. Trust me, it’s all a lot more impressive than it sounds. More than half the enjoyment is in actually seeing these creatures come to life.
Tonight is the season finale, and there’s even something of a little drama going on behind the scenes. It seems like it’s going to be a showdown between the arrogant Ben (not exactly a warm and fuzzy personality) and nice guy Robert, with an outside chance of an upset by sunny Melissa. They’re all extremely talented people, but I’m at least half invested in a Robert win, and would rather see Melissa win than Ben.
Yep, I never thought I’d actually care about which skilled design nerd would win a job before, but some of TV’s best shows are also the strangest. Grade for first season (excluding finale): A-