Steampunk’d episode uno - Color versus Gray

We all knew it was coming. A realityshow about Steampunkmakers on GSN and produced by Produced by Kimberly and John Erhhard of Pink Sneakers.

It’s trailer has been circling around steampunk groups and forums for a few months now and has be anticipated by many people since. So after all the hype of these last few months can Steampunk’d live up to the hype?

Each week, hosted by Jeannie May (The Real), two teams must both make a room for this manor. The best makers will be made next weeks captains and the two worst ( If you can call them that) will be send home by the jury. The rooms will than be judged by Kato (Steampunk Couture), Matt King (Producer of World of Steam) and Thomas Whileford (Writer of Steampunk Gears and Gadgets).
This week the two teams must make a kitchen, fitted with a Rube Goldberg device (or machine) and a fitting costume, in three days time.

a Rube Goldberg Machine

I really enjoyed watching Team JW from the start. JW is a really hands on man. Loves to work what is in front of him and taking charge. I like that. Also I really liked that he wanted to do something different rather than the typical brown and brass you see everywhere. So I really appreciated his contributions.
As for team Eddie, aka Team Clusterfuck. Oh boy. Steampunk Eddie is not a bad guy, but he was just a horrible captain, which created a toxic atmosphere. Soon Ave became the ‘secret captain’ appointed by the team. By day 2 the conflict came to a head, but was quickly resolved. But how about their kitchen.

Team JW's  kitchen (dubbed countryesque by Whileford) came with a butler-automaton. The Rube Goldburg device was lacking because, well JW didn’t care about that part (neither do I) and Tobias, a young Maker from Kent, wasn’t up to the task of building one.
Team Eddie made a gray kitchen with some original idea’s like a platespinning Rube Goldberg Device and a robotic maidcostume. But it was unfinished and I thought it was rather bland with all the gray tones.

I like team-JW's creation best. Colorfull, the theme came together and I love the automaton costume. Team Eddie had a better RB-device, but it didn’t impress me. The other teams sucked, but I still liked it better because of how flawed it was.

So, who won? Well, your going to have to watch it for yourselfs.

As for my opinion of the premiere itself, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I really didn’t like the trailer.
All thou I like they call Steampunk, ‘a retro futuristic style inspired by the Victorian era,’ it isn’t free clichés like ‘Were the past is the future and the future is the past’ … What does that mean? What really bugged me was the whole discussion about one of the kitchens not being steampunk-enough. I hate that! But I’ll get back to that in a later episode I expect.

As for what the show is really about, it ain’t about Steampunk or how to make Steampunk. It’s about Steampunk-makers and their conflicts. It is a realityshow, through and through with all the clichés that come with it. The quick camera cutaways. Zooming in on people’s faces when somebody says something they don’t agree with. The personal interviews about how everybody on their team sucks. Sure, conflict is a part of the creative group process. But it detracted from the actual making of things. I really want to see what they made and how they made it! Because there are some really awesome idea’s here that can easily be executed by the layperson. But these don’t get explained! 

But I’ll watch the next episode and probably write a review on that too, because there is some worth while content here. And I would be lying if I said all these personal vendetta’s, that are evolving, didn't drag me in. But I am kind of worried about the input of the jury. But we will see how much influence they will have on the assembly of the manor in the course of the series.

Till next time and please let me know If you would like a episode by episode review of this series, on facebook or here in the comments.

For a full step by step summary, take a look at the Airship Ambassadors blog *Spoiler Alert*