The Christmas season is well and truly upon us, with Netflix and other streaming platforms steadily rolling out a stream (no pun intended) of different holiday themed goodies from a number of different genres. Blown Away, which ended up a surprisingly popular reality series on Netflix, returns for a Christmas-themed cracker. Split across four episodes, this short and sweet series takes the tried and tested formula that’s worked so well in the past and adds a festive twist to proceedings. There’s $20k up for grabs – $10k to charity, $10k to the winner – as Blown Away brings together five memorable ghosts of Christmas past and has them battle it out for the coveted prize of winner. Nao, Cat, Edgar, Andi and Alexander are our worker elves (I will stop with the Christmassy puns in a minute I promise) and the judges judging these glass blowers are none other than glass expert Catherine and Bobby Berk, the enigmatic face from Queer Eye. Across the four episodes, every challenge is Christmas themed and designed to really instill that holiday cheer. Of course, there are the usual eliminations at the end of every episode, with the finale left with two talented glass blowers to duke it out. Of course, I won’t be a scrooge and spoil who makes it to the end (that’s the last one I promise) but suffice to say, the episodes are good value and the final challenge is just as impressively designed as we’ve seen from the previous seasons. The visual design and presentation here is largely the same, with background for each of the competitor thrown in across the run-time, your cut-away talking head interviews and plenty of festive background music for good measure. The challenges themselves have also all been used to invoke those memories of past holidays for maximum effect. Overall though, if you’re a fan of Blown Away, you should be absolutely in your element with this Christmas-themed gift. It may be a little short, and the show doesn’t reinvent the wheel or do anything outstanding (unless you count the excellent final products) but there’s enough drama and enjoyment to be had here to make it well worth checking out.
