The Sex Appeal Of Glass

WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT that a new niche reality contest centred on glassblowing would be such a compelling watch? On Blown Away, you don't get enticing images of delicious food, as you do on The Great British Bake-Off or MasterChef. Its contestants aren't exceptionally attractive, as they are on The Bachelor or Love Island. And there aren't the usual sharp-tongued celebrity judges a la Gordon Ramsay, Simon Cowell or RuPaul.

What you get instead is, well, glass - glass cups, glass vases, glass sculptures, glass tableware, glass everything - made by, well, eccentric artists. And yet the process of producing these wares turns out to be so complex, so fragile, so prone to failure that you find yourself inexplicably drawn to watching the 10 contestants compete for the prize of US$60,000 and a residency at the famous Corning Museum in New York.

Throughout each 20-minute episode, the men and women sweat it out in what looks like a human furnace. They use a blowpipe to inflate molten glass into a bubble, and then shape it accordingly using smaller tools. The tiniest mistakes can make the glass bend, crack or shatter. After just two episodes, you develop a particular showspecific dread of the sound of shattering glass, which peals not infrequently through the series as contestants try to create original pieces under a few hours, taking risks that sometimes don't pay off.