SyFy "Face Off" with the 'Triple Threat'

"Face Off" is beginning to play hardball with its latest episode 'Triple Threat,' which aired Feb. 15 on SyFy. The cliffhanger teaser that aired last week had McKenzie Westmore enter the backstage studio where the contestants sat exhausted after the judging on 'A Dangerous Beauty.' Westmore announces to the contestants their job is not over. In 'Triple Threat,' it's revealed that another challenge awaits the exhausted contestants. A lineup of gorgeous supermodels are presented on the stage and the contestants are to tone down their beauty, making them plain or even ugly.

The contestants had to create a backstory to the characters they were creating with wardrobe, hair and makeup to match. The creations included a drug addict complete with prosthetic track marks, a librarian with a nose cold and ink stains on her fingers and an actress turned prostitute.

The winner: Rayce for his librarian. They liked the backstory of how the librarian had a red nose from having her nose in the books all the time and the ink stains on her fingers.

The next challenge takes place a day later. Westmore presents the contestants with several pairs of twins. Their task is to age one twin to age 75 and the other twin to 100. While the teams are busy sculping prosthetics, Westmore has an additional surprise - the twins are in fact triplets. The third triplet is to be aged to 50 years old. While RJ is applying the prosthetic to his model, she has an allergic skin reaction. RJ loses valuable time as they bring in another model. RJ discovers the model's face is much smaller than the previous one. He has to do a fast patchwork job cutting off the excess mask and gluing it to his model.

The creations:

Beki, RJ and Heather - They worked off the premise of an overweight black woman who loses weight and becomes emaciated over time. The judges were the most critical of this team. Glenn Hetrik criticized Beki's creation (the 50 year old) for the high edges and the mask-like plastic look of the face. Heather's 100-year-old woman was blasted for looking more like a zombie. RJ was given kudos with his 75-year-old for the solid makeup job and for his improvisation with the model replacement.

Sue, Tara and Matt - They decided on a aging gangster theme. In a complete reversal, Sue was praised for her details in the 100-year-old gangster with the wrinkles and wardrobe choice. Matt was criticized for placing a balding cap on his model's full head of hair, creating a cone-head effect. Matt's 50-year old was called a chia pet crossed with a werewolf. Tara's 75-year-old was mostly approved of, but the long hair wig was cited as distracting.

Jerry, Ian and Rayce - They went with the aging hippie look. In a suprising turnabout, Jerry was complimented not once but twice during the contest. The judges liked the coloring Jerry applied to his 100-year-old hippie chick. Meanwhile Ian was ranked at the bottom of the barrel for his 75-year-old for the different colors in the paintjob between the head and the neck. Rayce's 50-year-old wasn't sunburned enough and the makeup made his model look more diseased than old.

Winner: Sue for her wrinkled 100-year-old gangster turned Benjamin Button style.

Loser: Heather for her poor paint job and makeup application that made her 100-year-old black lady look more like a zombie.

My take: I was surprised at the swift turn about with Sue. From last week's bottom of the barrel to the top, Sue truly had a dizzying ascent. The fact Sue hasn't won any of the previous contests makes me think this is more a flash in the pan than a real trend for her. Beki's terrible plastic-like mask on the 50-year-old black woman was surprisingly awful for the talented sculptress. A part of me thinks Beki was punished this week by the judges for her lack of loyalty and blaming Sue for last week's botched spider creation.

The 'Triple Threat' episode was one of the least interesting episodes of  "Face Off." The creations weren't that imaginative as they were transforming beautiful young models into old geezers. The show also is getting dirty with driving the contestants to work exhausted after the judging for 'A Dangerous Beauty.'

Next week's episode, Alien Interpreters, will air at 9 p.m. CST Wednesday, Feb. 22 on SyFy.

SyFy's "Face Off" sink or swim

The second episode of SyFy's special effects show Face Off got a small face lift from its awkward, blundering pilot episode with "Underwater Amalgations." Not only did the artists have to create an underwater sea creature, but their makeup job had to withstand being submerged in an underwater tank.

Internal team bickering intensified with Beki and Miranda spending more time yelling at each other than working on their sea dragon. Nix and Jerry agreed to not collaborate on their sea turtle, with Jerry working strictly the prosthetics while Nix focussed on the paint job with disastrous results.


The tank challenge proved the sink-or-swim moment. The sea dragon creations seemed to fare the best with Tara and Matt's sexy sea dragon lady looking both gorgeous and dangerous with her long swaying headpiece, pronounced scales and shimmering iridescent fabric. Despite Beki and Miranda's infighting, their sea dragon creation was beautiful with a clean paint job and fabric that swayed gracefully in the water.

Athena and Heather's lionfish benefited from Athena's awesome paint job skills featuring hundreds of swirling brown and beige stripes and Heather's fish face mask with moveable mouth. Nix and Jerry's creation proved the worst with the prosthetic turtle shell flying off the model's back in the water, the paint bleeding into the tank and the model panicking while submerged.

Perhaps the most hilarious creation was Ian and RJ's "shark lawyer," a zebra-shark creation wearing a three-piece suit. Sadly the suit flopped and flailed in the water and the shark was lost in a sea of pin-striped suit.
The winning team was Matt and Tara for the cool iridescent sexy sea dragon lady with Matt given special kudos for prosthetics.

The Jerry "curse" (that anyone paired up with Jerry loses) remained in effect as Nix was voted off the island for his substandard makeup on the sea turtle.

Face Off airs at 9 p.m. CST Wednesday on SyFy.

SyFy's Face Off Fails to Impress

I normally don't tune into shows like American Idol, Biggest Loser or Dancing with the Stars. I find them pointless and a waste of time. SyFy has spun off its own geeky version of such shows with Face Off. On the show makeup artists strive to design the best creature under a time limit with the hopes of winning prize money and a position as makeup artist on the next big blockbuster movie. I admit I found the process of creating prosthetics, masks and the makeup interesting. What I didn't like was the game show quality SyFy has built into the show from the last season. During the course of Face Off, some poor makeup artist is voted off the island at the end of the episode. They even go so far as to copy Survivor in the granting of "immunity" to one of the artists if they win the first creature-design challenge.

Face Off also is weighed down by a lot of contrived in-fighting among various artists, catty behavior among the girls and ego machismo antics among the men. No wonder many of them run out of time and are in a hectic flurry to finish their creations when they waste so much time fighting amongst themselves. This lends a rushed craziness to a lot of scenes which might make the show more exciting, but also a bit frustrating to watch if you want to see exactly how they created the creatures. You see a sculpted mask here, a paint job there but no indication of how they went from rubber latex mask to full paint job complete with wardrobe.

I also like to think talent is encouraged and fostered in this country rather than put in a game show style format to be ridiculed by a panel of stern-faced hard-assed judges. The popularity of such shows like American Idol, where talented performers are berated and mocked makes me feel that although audiences like watching talent they like the insults and humiliation more. Watching is easy, trying to go out and accomplish your dream with the possibility you could fall publicly on your face takes a lot of guts. Talent and courage should be applauded not mocked. But maybe the high ratings for such shows speak for themselves.