Premierewatch: "Shear Genius"

I'm a newbie to Shear Genius, but I love a good competition show, and since it's basically a clone of Top Chef and Project Runway (down to the theme music that was clearly written by the same guy), it was pretty easy to catch on. And a hoot. And it's got Jaclyn Smith, who's either discovered the fountain of youth or has the genes of a super race. Whatever she's drinking, I'll have a whole bunch, please.

So. The country's top 12 stylists will cut, color and style their way through 20 challenges that will make up the ultimate hair test. And the winner gets $100,000, an internship with Nexus, and the opportunity to style for Allure magazine. And we know what that means, don't we? Awesome.

This season's playaz:

• Paulo -- spiky hair and tattoos
• Nekisa -- a not-quite Kardashian with long dark wavy hair
• Charlie -- bald, glasses, wearing giant flower pin -- looks like Carrie Bradshaw and Stanford Blatch's love child
• Nicole -- cute blonde pixie, who I initially think might be too sweet for rock 'n' roll
• Daniel -- blonde with glasses, specializes in "Dallas Hair" (which makes me love him. Ringer for Kayne from Project Runway Season 3.
• Matthew
• Gail
• Parker -- looks just like Christian from Runway Season 4 -- if he had any muscle tone
• Glenn
• Meredith
• Oshun -- who continually says things like, "because I'm Oshun -- I'm deep" and "Oshun got the potion for the motion" or some such nonsense. It's not quite "I'm Taye Diggs," since it's so much dumber, but it's not a lot better.

First cut spoilers ahead....

So the first short cut challenge (get it?) is to cut their clients' hair blindfolded. The clients, bless them, are all wearing safety glasses -- and it seems that all of them make it through without being cut. But that's a salon I never want to visit.

The challenge is about accuracy and technical skills rather than speed -- and heavens to betsy, some of the results were just downright scary. A couple, though -- Dee's breezy feather-razor cut and Nicole's long shag on an Asian client with thick, straight, hard-to-cut hair -- were cute.  So the winners are named, and Kim Vo, master colorist and judge, lines them up in descending order.

Big-talking Oshun ends up going last. "The best always finish last -- but in the end I'm gonna be first," he says, saying that he's going to step up his game "even more." OK, (a) this is the first challenge, so "even more" makes no sense, and (b) you were just told that the cut you did was a horrible butcher job. You need to do more than just step up your game, dude. I'm a veteran of enough reality shows to know that whenever they highlight one contestant and that person mouths off a lot, it's generally a danger sign. So this isn't all that hard to decode.

The elimination challenge is to create an imitation of a favorite hairstyle -- and the celebrities whose styles we're copying are cartoon characters. Rene Fris, the Tim Gunn of Shear Genius, offers judicious advice but you can practically see him cringing -- and Jaclyn Smith has absolutely no poker face whatsoever, so I can't wait to keep watching her.

Among the hairstyles being copied: Wilma Flintstone, Marge Simpson, Lucy Van Pelt, Betty Boop. There are two clients per character, so we get to see a side-by-side comparison. How the hell is someone going to do an interpretation of Marge Simpson? Well, literally (Charlie's interpretation, with a giant beehive covered in blue fake hair) and badly (Matthew's version looks more Peg Bundy than Marge). Nekisha looks like she's headed for disaster with her attempt -- her Lucy has giant horizontal stripes running through it -- but in the end it's surprisingly cute. Parker's interpretation of Betty Boop is edgy and adorable, and Dee's is a little more Medusa-like. But not embarrassing to wear on the street. Our boy Oshun promises to create some magic with his Lucy -- and totally belly flops. Bad pigtail things hanging off the back of her head, odd stripy highlighting, limp.

But Daniel's Wilma Flintstone is a va-va-voom fabulous -- and he's rewarded accordingly. The color is a dead-on deep red, and the judges quite rightly note that Gwen Stefani could walk around with that haircut -- and, frankly, I think she has. Overall, there's a lot of dicey coloring going on, but to be fair these folks had just two-and-a-half hours to make it work. That's not much when you're processing.

In the end -- no surprise -- Oshun goes home. And mutters, loudly, "This is bull***t" on his way out the door. Way to go classy, man. the look on Jaclyn Smith's face is priceless. "My strategy was to downplay my great work for a challenge or two, and then blow them away," he says in his after-the-fact interview. "The strategy backfired." Uh, yeah. But hey man, you're deep.

What did you think? Would you let someone cut your hair blindfolded? Is it weird to have so many hair models who seemed so uninterested in undergoing big changes in length or color? Who's your early favorite? Your dark horse?

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