Maggie Rants [and Raves]

A Show of Our Own

by Maggie Franklin | October 8, 2014 | Bookmark +

Someday I am going to retire to the middle of nowhere and live off the grid like it was 1893. I’m already on my way — our house doesn’t have a microwave, the BF doesn’t have a cell phone...and we don’t watch TV.

We have a television. Old school style. Since we were subscribed to cable when the digital revolution took place, we didn’t have to get a converter box to continue receiving channels. But when our “basic” cable channels stopped, including History and Discovery, we were uninterested in upgrading to spending $65+ a month just for access to the two or three shows we missed.

When we bought our house in 2010, we dropped cable altogether. We figured we’d research our options for premium television and decide which service would suit us best.

Instead, we discovered that we didn’t miss it all that much. We still have the old TV and the DVD player, so we watch a lot of “Futurama” on DVD.

And so it is, with reluctance and shame, that I admit that I have never seen a single episode of that nail “reality” show on the TV Guide Channel. I look into it now and then and always come to the conclusion that I’m not missing anything. No one in my professional circles spends much time talking about it, my clients never mention it, and from all the reading I’ve done, it doesn’t strike me as being at all “real.”

I miss “Tabitha’s Salon Takeover” — is it still on the air? But it’s not like it ever really dealt with nails anyway.

But tonight. Tonight I will be pretty sad. Tonight is the debut of the new nail “reality” competition show, “Nail’d It.” The show that I’ve been waiting for since long before anyone got serious about producing it.

I’m hoping that “Nail’d It” puts the face of the professional nail industry in front of Jane Q. Public in the same manner that shows such as “Sheer Genius” and “Top Chef” have done in those industries. That the audience will have a chance to see the competitions and the competitors and spend their hour saying, “Wow! I didn’t know you could do that with nail stuff!” and “Wow! I had no idea that this level of professionalism existed in the nail business!” and ultimately, “Wow! I have GOT to find a nail tech like that!”

I expect this show will bring in a new type of clientele and I expect that I will be banging my head against the wall when it does. I’m sure I’m going to hear all sorts of “can you do that design that (insert name of competitor here) did on the show last week?” or “OMG, Maggie! Can you do that?” and my regulars are going to spend a lot of time saying, “Maggie, how come you’re not on that show?”

What I don’t know yet is if I’ll be able to actually watch the show myself. I’m hoping the Oxygen Channel will offer the opportunity to watch episodes online without making me wait till the end of the season when they might be available on Netflix or Hulu.

I can’t believe we finally get a show of our own and I’m likely to miss it.

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