Costume drama
It may only be make-believe, but darn it if it isn’t wicked-awesome fun. Cosplayers stride into the spotlight with the new competition series Cosplay Melee, debuting Tuesday on Space.
In each episode, four world-class cosplayers will create original characters and full-body costumes, and then bring everything to life through performance. At stake? A very real $10,000.
The judging panel includes The Hunger Games’ costume creator Christian Beckman and famous cosplayer LeeAnna Vamp. Yvette Nicole Brown is the host.
“Cosplay (a shortened version of the term ‘costume play’) is passion, artistry, engineering and theatre all rolled into one,” said Heather Olander, the senior vice-president of U.S. broadcaster Syfy, in a statement.
The first episode centres on characters inspired by contestants’ favourite scifi space operas, like Star Trek and Star Wars. Subsequent instalments will feature Game of Thrones, anime, superheroes and video games.
“I think people always have been watching Star Wars, or some movie that they love, and saying, ‘I can be Darth Vader.’ When we were kids, you would see a movie and go home and grab a pillow case and duct tape and make your own cape,” Brown recently told Parade.
This fall, Brown stars in ABC’s comedy The Mayor, about a hip-hop artist who runs for mayor to promote his mixtape — and wins.
MAKEUP MATTERS
Special-effects makeup competition Face Off dabs its brush into the blush once again, with Season 12 debuting Tuesday on Space. A teaser video reveals a special twist: Instead of pitting individual artists against each other, two teams will battle it out in a divide-andconquer situation. Ve Neill, Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page return as judges.
“You have to know anatomy. You have to know colour sciences. You have to be an art student to do it all,” Neill told The Muse.
“If you don’t know anatomy, you don’t know how to build on top of a person’s face to make it look realistic — even if you’re making a creature, you have to make it so that it works.”
UPLIFTING TV
Born This Way, A&E’s Emmy-winning docuseries about seven adults with Down syndrome, airs a new episode Tuesday. In Fallout, Rachel Osterbach gets a callback after an audition and Sean McElwee throws a “man shower” for a friend.
“I actually cried from happiness,” Osterbach told NPR about being cast in the show, “because I always wanted to be on TV. Because I wanted to be like the regular people on TV.”