I watched the show episode. My toughts:
-about the show itself
I basically watched it only because Adriana is in it, I'm a guy so I don't use make-up so I'm not into this kind of things, and the first 15-20 minutes of creating the looks where you only see the contestants going around and working imo are a too much to endure for someon not inside the business like me, considering that it's almost half the episode's lenght and it takes away precious time that later was needed to show things better.
I was more interested on the photoshoot the contestants had to do with their looks, that imo was the time when the looks come to life and in motion it shows better the artist concepts, but it was too short.
The idea of the models with the looks doing a small runway walk wa also a good idea for the same reason, but it was edited so badly it looked rushed and you coulnd't see anything well enough. As someone said here befroe, it's a lot similar to VS editing on that.
The judging process was interesting too, but I found the guest judge a bit too harsh, like she isn't even a makeup artist, an hair stylist, a model or a photographer, and sometimes I felt her comments a bit too harsh for a not-professional, while Russell and Sarah have all the rights to do that.
If you like the drama of the reality tv shows, the contestants speaking of their lives, their ideas, dreams, and what they think of the other ones, you will like this aspect of the show, which is clearly one of the things they invested on. To me personally is more of a downside, I've never liked reality tv shows and I got an overhall feeling of extreme fakeness from the contestants when they were togheter as a group, but that's my personal taste, not a critique on ABS becuase it's basically a mandatory characteristic of this tv show genre.
I was expecting a bigger involvement of Sir John, while he was not shown much as a mentor, just going around a bit and giving a few tips, but he was completely absent from the judging process, a thing that imo is extremely stupid becuase he saw first hand the creation process and he is the make-up artist there, while the other judges aren't, so it should be his business to judge the technical skills of the contestants, since he is the most qualified for it. Hearing his opinions and expalnations would be very helpfull for us watching too, since not knowing anything about make-up techniques I couldn't understand how much a certain contestant was skilled from a technical point of view or just a talented amateur.
So imo it's not bad for a realtiy tv show, but it could be better if they invested more on the presentations of the looks istead of the creation process, that takes alreayd too much screentime.
-about Adriana:
imo she did really good, her English is really improved a lot, and you can feel the effort she puts into speaking clearly and to tone down a bit her usually more exuberant personality, because as an host she has to, in order to present everything clearly. She also does great portraying the caring and almost motherly figure for the contestants, being supportive even when the judges aren't. She is emphatic as a woman in real life and that shows. I'm not happy with the very small (almost none) role she has in the judging process, okay she is the host so she can't vote, but they don't even let her talk and express her opinions or suggestions. She only does it twice, with a brief compliment about a natural makeup one of the contestants did, and playfully questioning one of Russell critiques, where even if toned down a bit, her funny personality side gets out. I find very stupid from ABS that, being a show lucky enough to have a huge intrenationally famous personality like Adriana on it, they use her so little, while she is the one the people watching are more interested about. She has personality, charisma, is funny and interesting, so let her show that! I hope she gets a more active role later on the series, and the promo of next week episode seems to move a bit in that direction showing another funny moment with Russell.
btw it seems next week guest judge will be Behati.
