I rate this simply based on what it is and nothing more. Obviously the premise is repairing botched up tattoos from real people. There are 3 gifted tattoo artists, each with a strength in cover-ups, but also individual style and limitations. One of the artists, Tommy Helm, was a contestant who got pretty far in another tattoo- reality show called Ink Masters ( also on Spike). I find it odd that the IMDb only credits the players for the re-enactment scenes and not the tattoo artists themselves, at least thats how it pops up on my screen. I really like this show. The format is simple: They open shop, they meet their clients one-on-one, reveal the bad tat, describe what they want as the cover-up, the artist sketches something based on that description, during the actual session the history of the bad tat is revealed, then the final product is revealed. The calm, professional, and friendly demeanor of the artists really stick out. IMO, they are pretty equal to the task of the cover-up but Big Gus is more inconsistent with the actual art than the Jasmine and Tommy. A couple of things stick out, if I want to be overly critical: 1) as its presented, the client always loves both first drafts and final product 2) Jasmine, despite having model-good looks, seemingly only owns one top as she wears the same one in every episode, and calls everyone "sweetheart". On the positive: the show is very well-paced and edited, the individual stories are usually compelling/funny, and the best thing is the re- enactment scenes which are hilarious.
Review of Tattoo Nightmares
