When I first found Blown Away on Netflix, I really enjoyed it and found it interesting as well as entertaining and I ended up writing my own personal review of the first season.

A second season of the show – which sees glass blowers compete to win the once in a lifetime opportunity to display their work in a prestigious gallery – was released last week and I blitzed through it in two evenings, so it felt only right to talk about me feelings on the new season.

While it is still an American competition and production, this year they welcomed competitors from countries outside of the United States including an artist from England. While the majority of competitors are still from the USA this little glimmer of change is refreshing and hopefully in the future it could become a global competition with a better balance of artists.

Something which was a little concerning for me from the outset is that there is no transparency when it comes to the filming of the series and the coronavirus pandemic. There is no indication of when the series was filmed or what kind of protocols were followed to minimise the risk of contagion with competitors. I realise that every country is using different tactics to handle the pandemic and this might just be a reflection of the USA’s way of dealing with it, but there is no sign or mention of quarantining (especially for international competitors), a competitor bubble (Great British Bake Off, Great Pottery Throw Down) or social distancing (Task Master). Even things which you imagine would be easy to implement, like each artist having their own set of tools and their own dedicated work space.

Oh yeah and they get a student to help them out in each challenge and in each challenge it’s a different student, so there’s clearly a disregard for minimising the number of people you have contact with.

Moving on, the creations are once again wonderful. The skill and creativity shown by these creators is incredible and each and every single one of them deserves recognition for their talents. I definitely recommend checking them out.

I commented on Instagram, prior to watching the last couple of episodes, about how I was fairly sure that this season was rigged. Like, the results are painfully obviously in favour of one particular competitor and I was actually pretty annoyed by it especially considering the results of the first season. If you watch it, I think you’ll know exactly who I’m referring to and the feedback from Instagram was that I was definitely not the only person who felt this way. In fact, there’s multiple times throughout the season when the judges feedback does not really match up with the results which is pretty confusing. I think what I’m saying is that I just want one season of Blown Away where it all flows naturally and everything just seems to click into place on the path to the final.

In all honesty I think I’ve also just decided that I’m not super into the ‘I’m better than everyone’ attitude which a lot of these American competition show participants seem to have. I much prefer that British humbleness and the times when you know that the person who says “I’m here to win” is probably going home in the first episode.

Talking of participants, I hoped that the person who was first to leave the hot shop in season one would get a redemption moment in this season (like Shangela did in RPDR) but (I GUESS THIS IS MAYBE A SPOILER) he doesn’t. Fingers crossed he gets to come back next season and show us what he’s really capable of.

In all honesty I don’t think there is too much more I can say, especially if I want to keep it spoiler free (I hope I’ve kept it spoiler free!) and I realise that this review probably seems largely negative but I promise it’s a good show. Am I blown away by it? No, I’m not. Will I watch it again? Yes, almost definitely. Do I recommend it for watching by absolutely everyone? Ab-so-luuuutely.