MPDP appears wearing black pants and a midriff-skimming, wildly printed top with a deep v-neck and sheer black sleeves in a dramatic bell shape. I'm distracted by her sleeves all through the show. She tells us they're in Austin, where "two living rooms are going to receive a magical transformation with the work from four wacky homeowners, two very clever designers, and one zany carpenter." We see the four homeowners sticking their heads through holes in a map of Texas painted on a huge piece of canvas. MPDP tells us they're inside a local comedy club. The first pair of homeowners is Jerome and Angie; Jerome's a professional comedian. Uh oh...shades of Chris Wylde and "Los Angeles: Willoughby Avenue." Same designers, too: Doug and Gen. MPDP says that Jerome and Angie want their living room to be an escape from their busy lives, while their neighbours Erik and Courtney want their living room to pop with colour.

We cut to a stage, where Doug, Gen, and Ty appear in various costumes. Ty's costume consists of a big frizzy brown wig. Ty, Roseanne Rosannadanna called and she wants her hair back. Gen's in a cheesy black and yellow sequined evening gown and a very ugly blonde wig of stiff, '70s country-singer curls. Gen, Tammy Wynette called and she definitely doesn't want her hair back. But Anna Nicole Smith is wondering where you got that dress, and if they have anything trashier. Doug is sporting a red bolero jacket with sequined lapels and a brown wig that makes him look like Topher Grace -- on a good hair day. Doug is playing the magician; Gen's his assistant. They put Ty in a box and pretend to cut him in half, accompanied by the sound of much screaming, Ty's favourite activity. It's the fakest thing ever, and once they separate the two pieces of the box, Ty's wig is left sticking out of the top half, somehow being wiggled and jerked around to simulate his screaming head. MPDP: "You know, splitting Ty in half isn't going to get the work done any faster." No, but calling Amy Wynn in might. MPDP appears in front of a red satin curtain to finish explaining the premise of the show. She snaps her fingers and disappears.

We see Jerome and Angie's family room. It has white walls and ceiling with greige carpet. It's fairly open to the rooms around it -- the kitchen, living room and hallway -- and there's an arch-shaped opening above a half-wall into the living room. There's a small angled wall featuring a pretty fugly fireplace with greige tile around it and a mantel with crown molding. The mantel is narrower than the tile surround, and the top corners of the tiles are chamfered, so the whole thing has a strange pinched look. The wall it's on is sort of a tan colour. The room has one of those cheapo quasi-Mexican armoires in a yellowy-brown stain, and a coffee table and end table of similar style and rusticity. There are three little diamonds stencilled on the wall above the armoire; don't know what that's about. There's a small sage green side chair, a leather sofa in an oxblood colour, and another side chair in a multicoloured print. The sofa is in front of a wall with three large windows on it, covered with white blinds and with a skimpy hank of brown fabric swagged above it. There's a ceiling fan. Isn't there always? Especially in the south, it's like saying, "There's a floor."