Syfy’s ‘Face Off’ Tackles Star Trek With Dorn And Frakes Judging

We’re into the ninth season of Syfy’s Face Off, which continues to be the network’s highest rated unscripted series. This week’s make-up theme is Star Trek, so I was eager to see where they took the challenge. The episode is in the series typical two challenge format, however this time the way they tie it back to Star Trek is that in the first round the contestants have to create an alien design based on a different background assigned to each person, and in the second they’re tasked to update it for a “Next Generation” era feel.

Since the first round is always only a few hours in length, the challenge was to come up with an alien character with a TOS-era look (read: relatively simplistic and something they could pound out quickly). Host McKenzie Westmore‘s father, Michael Westmore returns again as the guest mentor & judge for the remaining contestants. His being on any episode is a plus, as he, more than many of the featured industry guests, continues to have some of the best feedback and helpful ideas for the various competitors.

I’ve no idea where the costume closet that they raid pieces from is, but they did make use of a Galaxy Quest costume (since it’s one my favorite Star Trek movies, I was bummed none of the judges or contestants mentioned it). Once the initial challenge is complete and the winner selected, it was time to move on to the second round. The twist in this episode beyond that of the norm, is that the second round was a challenge to make a “Next Generation” variation of the design created in the first round. They were to take those same alien designs but update them with a two-day makeup and prosthetic build session to showcase their ability to modernize and expand on an initial creation.

Jonathan Frakes and Michael Westmore review the in-progress face pieces and designs.

An ever-jovial Jonathan Frakes appears halfway through the episode to join Michael in giving the various competitors feedback and to ask questions about the directions they were taking on their designs. Michael Dorn appears and joins in the action as a judge during the final reveal of the models wearing the full costumes, makeup, and prosthetics.

The episode ties itself together better than most in that you get to see each contestant take a second stab at their designs. Some realize just where to go to make it really pop, while others have that deer caught in the headlights look. I could still wish that there’d be more time given to heading the feedback and suggestions given by Jonathan and Michael to the various designs, but overall getting to see where modern makeup artists are able to go with little time and lots of pressure (and skipping the too-common interpersonal drama that plagues so many of these competition shows) continues to be a leading reason why Face Off’s ratings numbers remain among Syfy’s highest.

Face Off shows Tuesday nights at 9 p.m./8 p.m. central.

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I’d LOVE to watch this show except:

1. I don’t have syfy, among many if not all of my favorite channels, anymore at my house in order to save money we need (thanks expensive-only-provider-in-area cable company).

2. I don’t have the login info for our cable company to verify to watch on syfy’s website. Oh well, time to torrent it, screw the cable companies.

Well..screw the cable COMPANY, not companies. There ARE other providers, but not for broadband service. hell,we don’t even have fiber here yet for whatever BS reason Verizon is giving now.

Mikey1091 you can’t afford it, so you gleefully steal it instead? How pathetic…

Nice! Apart from my interest in all things VFX and makeup, I started watching this because it features Michael Westmore. I love his work since TNG, and even had a magazine about his work on the series. This show is entertaining, but I’d love if it would be more about the technical and creative aspects and less about the drama. Anyway, I’ll keep watching and now I have another incentive to do so.

Definitely, reboot TNG. The cast is looking a bit rough (not their fault). Damn you TIME!!!

If you reboot ST TNG, you’ll need some younger actors added to fulfil the beefcake/cheesecake quota. So, it would be ST TNG’s NG.

1. Mikey1091 – September 1, 2015

– I ‘cut the cord’ myself a few months ago, and couldn’t be happier. As for SyFy, I *think* Hulu offers some of their programming, but it’s always delayed, so you’d probably have to wait about a year to see this.

Cable companies are just robbers, plain and simple.

Try YouTube, is my advice. Free, and you’d be surprised what you find on there.

Dorn’s approving expression is priceless “MmmmHmmm”

@ Mikey, Beware, some bit torrent providers are scamming credit cards, at least when it comes to films.
——————————– ————— —————- —————-
@ Danpaine, too right about cable companies. They and telecoms really want to choke out competition. .. seems like monopolies are okay now.

Basic internet should be free or at least very low cost for every citizen! Those who want add-ons (I miss my Netflix!!!) can get them at additional cost. But cable right now is ridiculously high.

As the king in that Mel Brooks movie said, “scrrrew them!”

FREE THE INTERNET
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@ DJT, I’m not sure he was even looking at the makeup.

I know it’s not the case, but the photo makes it look like that judge lady is groping the girl in the costume’s breast.

If cable companies are making all this money hand over fist, why aren’t we all investing our retirement funds in cable company stock?

@#3chopped Copying is not stealing. In times before the printing press, copying books was the only way to bring education to the people. People who did that layed the groundwork for human civilization. Copyright laws today rob young people of ecucation. It’s a shame.

You can also by it on iTunes; I think $15 for the season in SD, so it’s pretty affordable.

So how was the episode?

Reality TV. Meh.

#12 meisterolsen “@#3chopped Copying is not stealing. In times before the printing press, copying books was the only way to bring education to the people. People who did that layed the groundwork for human civilization. Copyright laws today rob young people of ecucation. It’s a shame.”

oh sure,that completely validates theft and piracy.

Nice try.

#12. meisterolsen – September 4, 2015

I agree. But good luck on getting people here to see copyright is a mere artifice recently invented and which had its original intent and purpose perverted in modern times. I’ve tried. All they seem concerned about is the occasional poor shlub’s estate that wins the lottery in prevailing against the windmills built by the megacorps and whose winnings pale by the amounts the megacorps claim for their own in depriving other creative minds of reaping same for actually creating the stuff the megacorps pretend they somehow have a mind to do.

#12. meisterolsen – September 4, 2015

I agree. But good luck on getting people here to see copyright is a mere artifice recently invented and which had its original intent and purpose p3rv3rted in modern times. I’ve tried. All they seem concerned about is the occasional poor shlub’s estate that wins the lottery in prevailing against the windmills built by the megacorps and whose winnings pale by the amounts the megacorps claim for their own in depriving other creative minds of reaping same for actually creating the stuff the megacorps pretend they somehow have a mind to do.

#16. Jonboc – September 5, 2015

An idea can not be stolen or pirated any more than the English language is stolen or pirated each time a newborn learns it. Humans evolved to depend upon copying through imitation and learning in order to survive. It is a basic life survival skill for us, if not the fundamental principal upon which the most abundant “successful” life on planet Earth exists, i.e. by COPYING genetic material.

The idea that MONSANTO can bankrupt a farmer because genetic sequences it claims it owns gets into some farmer’s crop has to be the height of the absurdity reached by this nonsense that copying is somehow something outside the natural order of things and evil.

Theft is theft. No excuses. Jonboc is 100% right.

#12. meisterolsen – September 4, 2015

See what I mean?

I don’t know why this just occurred to me but its probably been mulling around in my head for decades but deprioritized when I lost my then nascent ability in my second year of existence later fully realized to puberty later on.

Eidetics are NOT thieves, pirates or immoral simply because they have no use for second shows, iTunes, blu-rays, etc.

Join the Eidetic Anti-Defamation League!

Those who seek to prop up copyrights solely by outlawing copying be warned: eidetic memory is a real documented natural human phenomenon and one human medical research is liable to eventually be able to cause to emerge in all humans. Copyright is not sustainable solely on an anti-copying foundation in perpetuity. You need a better, fairer and more equitable plan to reward creatives this limited monopoly

Marilu Henner is not a criminal.

#19. Prodigal Son – September 5, 2015

Do human beings have a right to have abilities they once had but lost through no fault of their own restored when medical science can offer it either biologically or through medical prosthesis?

No, that is not a right. Medical procedures are available though directly paying for them or though in-surance – be it gov’t in-urance or private. But a basic right, no.

BTW, true eidetic memory is a sham…it’s never been proven to exist in terms of the supposed ability to re-experience everything you have ever seen or heard.

Copyright/patents, I thought, was about acknowledging the person who came up with an idea, invention, and seeing that whatever rewards, dues, go to that person.

My understanding about what Monsanto is doing is that the company is genetically altering the seed, with a terminator gene, so that it is unable to reproduce itself and so the farmer has to go buy more seed to sow another crop. Before this, farmers would pass down good seeds from generation to generation going back 100’s of years perhaps. There was never a need to go buy from anyone, which was and is important, since most of these people survived and still live via subsistence agriculture. It has increased the level of poverty in these countries (mostly Africa) and reduced the genetic varieties.

As environmentalist/economist E F Schumacher once wrote, “Variety is not just the spice of life. It is the NECESSITY of Life”.

E F Schumacher is the author of the book “Small is Beautiful” in the 1970’s. It predicted the harms of globalisation and megacorps could cause and sadly much of it has come to pass. EXCELLENT book. Just hope that it is not too late to start implementing many of his ideas, which made so much sense then and now…

Monsanto and other similar megacorps do no one any favours, far from it. This is just Greed – rightly described as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

While googling eidetic memory, I got sidetracked and came across this –

http://www.medicaldaily.com/pulse/texas-grandfather-has-burned-hand-sewn-abdomen-tummy-tuck-surgery-blood-supply-351018

I know… so OT, but thought it quite interesting. Who knew?

@ Keachcick

That’s why health care is getting so expensive…does an 87-year old man really need incredibly expensive surgery like that, or would it be better to simply have his left arm amputated, and get by still with a decent quality of life, with his right arm being fine, for the remaining 5 years of or so of his life?

#22. Prodigal Son – September 5, 2015

Not exactly where I was going but an interesting answer. Thanks.

What I meant is do we have a right to heal which our bodies will do on their own and to augment that healing towards the goal of restoring the function to as close to the original as possible? Take it as a given that the procedures and devices to that end are legally procured. Do we as possessors of certain inalienable rights have the right to pursue the happiness of it?

Although, it would be interesting to go off on a tangent of pondering the question of whether it is moral to deny millions of dying third world children cures the world over merely because of the dictates of the artifice of economics?

# 23. Prodigal Son – September 5, 2015

” BTW, true eidetic memory is a sham…” — Prodigal Son

Well, I’m not sure what level of recall you consider “true”. Clearly the human mind can’t commit things to memory beyond the limitations of its five, some say six, senses. It can’t be holographic as they express it on screen in UNFORGETTABLE because our vision doesn’t work that way. I suppose Henner’s mind is capable of projecting things to fill in the blanks just as 3-D conversion processes do for the cinema but I’m not sure what to call that? Eidetically enhanced crime scene modelling

I can only testify as to my personal experience with it and it was at least to the level that film and video discs offer. I can recall when I cracked open a brand new 1959 Grolier’s Encyclopedia volume looking up Helicopter and I closed it and realized I could call up the image of that page and read it, every word, just as if it was still open, picture of a Sikorsky helicopter and all. That level of picturesque vivid committing to memory wasn’t on for me all the time as in Henner’s autobiographical case. I quickly figured out what level of concentration activated it. The only times it happened outside of my willful control after that was in instances that induced an extreme adrenaline response as in the case of fear which was when it moved from a marvelous “gift” to a curse as any outside stimulus that would cause my thoughts to drift to any of those eidetically etched in my mind adrenaline events would activate a vivid playback with an equally strong adrenaline response. Nightmares from this were the worst. It wasn’t until I discovered lucid dreaming much later that I was able to discover ways to shut that down and minimize the adrenaline response to the replay but that didn’t happen until I discovered philosophy, to which I suppose I have to credit the character Spock and oddly enough STAR TREK, in my tween years.

# 25. Prodigal Son – September 5, 2015

” That’s why health care is getting so expensive…does an 87-year old man really need incredibly expensive surgery like that…” — Prodigal sun

According to the reasoning I saw in your previous response in 22, if the 87-year old man has the resources to directly pay for it, yes he does, because he can.

Although the surgery re my post #24 was unusual, would it have been that expensive, I wonder, compared with amputation, prosthesis, rehab?

People have and do live without limbs. Often we do not realise just how important that other hand is until we no longer have it, even if it is not the hand we write with.

Proof of the existence of “Disinvited Gas” in WOK?

http://trekcore.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/khan1-large.jpg

;-)

#30. Prodigal Son – September 7, 2015

Hey, was that preconcept art back when it was VENGEANCE or early WRATH?

@ Disinvited

I think early, so probably Vengence….check out the really cool article on Trekcore.

Mr Dorn looks very pleased with the model’s breasts.

@ The Troubled Tribble

That female judge seems to be really enjoying the model as well.