Can Jewel and Kara DioGuardi Make "Platinum Hit" Go Gold?

Back before Bravo became the "go to" network for botoxed housewives, the channel was best known for being the home of quality  competitive reality programming (well, at least a lot of the time). That, of course, included Project Runway, one of the premiere reality series on U. S. television, as well as Top Chef, the show that finally managed to unseat The Amazing Race as the reigning Emmy reality show champion.

While Bravo still seems intent on putting a Housewives franchise in every state in America, the network hasn't given up on the competitive reality genre, having just this week launched Platinum Hit, a competitive songwriting show featuring Jewel and Kara DioGuardi as judges.

So is Platinum Hit Bravo's next Work of Art, the surprisingly engaging show about artists that was a surprise hit last summer? Or is it more the awful Project Runway rip-off The Fashion Show? (For the purposes of this article, I'm referring only to the first season of TFS.) Let's take a look based on concept originality, judging, execution, and contestants.

Concept Originality 

For competitive reality shows like Platinum Hit, the success of the show starts with how interesting watching a certain activity is. Sometimes the appeal is obvious. For instance, watching scantily clad, frequently attractive people backstab each other in various tropical locales around the world (Survivor) is pretty interesting.

Other times the appeal is less obvious. I, for one, expected watching artists creating art on Work of Art to be kind of boring, yet it was actually fascinating. And even derivative reality shows like Top Chef: Just Desserts or  The Voice can have interesting aspects and twists that make them work quite well.

So how does songwriting compare to whipping up chocolate desserts or half naked survivors? Well... watching writers write isn't that exciting pretty much no matter what you do. The first episode of PH featured much furious scribbling and furrowed brows, but clearly the creators realized that aspect would never be that interesting and wound up highlighting the conflict between team members (as does most any reality show.) PH does let viewers hear the songs being performed, but as the judges noted during the episode, the writers are only being judged on the lyrics, so the performance isn't actually important.

Verdict:While PH's concept isn't a rip-off of another show entirely, it still makes for pretty lackluster television and is a long way from being a Work of Art.

Judging

Singer Jewel and singer/songwriter and former American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi serve as the show's two main judges. (Jewel also hosts.) Based on the first episode, Jewel is more likable (think Top Chef's Gail Simmons) while DioGuardi is much more a stern taskmaster (think Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi). While both are knowledgeable about their craft and are more well more known to a general audience than any of the judges from WoA, those judges were more generally more appealing and engaging than either Jewel or DioGuardi has been thus far.

(While TFS judge Isaac Mizrahi was both knowledgeable and engaging, his co-host Kelly Rowland was a complete dud.)

Verdict: PH avoids being TFS this time, but once again, it isn't a Work of Art.

Execution

This far into the modern era of reality television, very few competition shows don't faithfully follow the template created by either Project Runway or Top Chef. Namely, after some sort of challenge, frequently involving a last minute twist, a panel of judges evaluates the resulting work and eliminates a contestant.

Bravo excels at these kinds of shows even the abysmal The Fashion Show managed to mostly get that aspect right.

Verdict: Stuck in the middle again.

Contestants

This is a hard one to judge after a single episode, but, hey, this is the internet and the internet waits for no one! If any single thing killed The Fashion Show for me, it was the contestants, especially the incredibly unpleasant Merlin, who had to be one of the worst gay reality show contestants ever.

On the other hand, one of the things that made Work of Art so appealing was that while it included some off-beat and quirky contestants (Miles, Peregrine) it also featured some very appealing folks as well, especially eventual winner Abdi Farah. More importantly, many of the contestants were very talented and created interesting art. Oh, and there was no Merlin, so consider that another huge plus.

Based on the first episode of PH, there is no one as annoying as Merlin, but there is also no one as obviously talented as was Abdi. Meanwhile, several contestants are less than appealing either because they are just odd and on the show for no discernible reason thus far (Melissa Rycroft), talented yet arrogant and off-putting (Nick Nittolli) or arrogant and not particularly talented (Sonyae Elise). With the exception of Scotty Granger (the show's one out contestant), PH's other contestants aren't particularly likable or memorable thus far.

Verdict: More TFS than WoA

Did you catch the first episode? What did you think?