Glassmaking can be soothing, but it’s also an athletic endeavor, pursued in an environment that is sweltering. While the general sensibility of Blown Away emphasizes the pressure that the artists are under to get their work completed in a brief period of time, the camera occasionally pauses to linger, almost lovingly, on some of these more hypnotic steps in the process. The artists also often roll their still-in-progress pieces through frits, bits of crumbled, hard glass that adhere to the primary surface the way kosher salt sticks to the rim of a margarita, another extremely tactile, satisfying thing to witness.
#Blown away cat burns skin
Even though I know it would scald and possibly permanently remove my skin from my body, I kind of want to bathe in a vat of scorching liquid glass when I watch Blown Away? They shape and press what look like huge globs of goo but will eventually harden into sculptures, vases, or perfume bottles. They blow - hence the name blown glass - into the punties to expand the bubbles and balloons on the other end. Contestants stretch it for several feet like it’s a huge, infinitely flexible piece of bubble gum. The things that can be done with glass, especially when it’s hot and malleable, are mesmerizing to watch. Slide on the fuzziest socks, brew the hottest tea, burrow under your favorite blanket, and turn on Blown Away.įor those not previously exposed to the world of punties (the rods used for sculpting glass) and glory holes (that’s what they call the furnaces where glass sculptures are heated - really, it’s not dirty!), there is major ASMR-adjacent action in Blown Away. What’s different is that it focuses on glassblowing, a physically demanding, primal, and tactile endeavor that most people have probably never witnessed, let alone attempted themselves.Ĭertain aspects of that process make this an inherently winter watch, which is to say it’s the sort of show that will fit seamlessly into whatever hygge routine you have established.
#Blown away cat burns series
The series is structured like pretty much every other competition show that has ever existed: Ten contestants engage in a different challenge during each episode, with one person getting knocked out in every installment until, in the finale, a champion is named. Blown Away, whose second season arrives on Netflix today, is a winter show, always has been, and that should have been obvious to me two years ago.
At the time, I characterized it as ideal summer viewing, but I was wrong.
The first season of Blown Away dropped on Netflix in July of 2019. The judges have the air of people who can’t wait to get back to the seminar where they scowl at the naiveté of students.Nao Yamamoto, generating heat in Blown Away season two. One contestant’s piece looks like very accomplished work but a judge sniffs, “It looks like something in an airport gift shop.” Ouch. Also he asks the contestants, “Are you ready to play with fire?” You roll your eyes because the people he is addressing are serious artists who will talk about “the conceptual bravery” of a piece somebody creates. “What is glass, anyway?” he asks one of the judges in the very first episode. Host Nick Uhas, a former Big Brother contestant and, apparently a YouTube star, seems completely lost. Yet it has a kooky quality that is highly amusing. I am only writing this to make you watch it, so I can have someone to talk to about it.” Time magazine said, “The fiery, delicate work of glass artists makes for more captivating television than cooking or fashion design.” A reviewer raving about it in The Guardian admitted it was indefinable, and wrote, “I can’t stop watching it.
That might be one of the reasons why the series – the second season arrived in January – has got so much international attention. One of the reasons the series works as entertainment and education is the sheer weirdness of the reality-TV format imposed on what is a highly skilled, highly technical creative process.
Binge-watching guide: More than 30 series and specials to help you get through winter
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