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Ink Master

Ink Master, TV’s first tattoo competition, reaches 100 episodes

Ink Master season 7 finale, Cleen Rock One
Ink Master season 7 runner-up Cleen Rock One, center, and two human canvases. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Spike)

by Andy Dehnart 11 Oct. 2016 | 2:48 pm

The eighth episode of Ink Master airs tonight on Spike, and represents a milestone for television’s first tattooing competition: it’s the show’s 100th episode.

While the Dave Navarro-hosted show debuted in 2012, well after the craze of talent competitions kicked off by Project Runway and Top Chef, it’s now one of the few talent-driven reality television competitions left. It follows roughly the same format as its predecessors, but its contestants use human canvases, people who subject themselves to rapid tattooing in a competition for the chance at a free tattoo (but not free removal). That adds drama and consequence, especially considering the nature of some of the challenges.

This season, judges Oliver Peck and Chris Núñez are each mentoring a team of tattoo artists that they picked. Their friendship, including with host Dave Navarro, is apparently too real for the show—so they have to reshoot scenes if they’re too friendly. Peck told International Business Times, “The problem is that me, Chris and Dave are all such good friends that we have to try to separate that to be separate judges, and sometimes we have to take step back and do it again just for the show’s sake. We need to be a little bit more harsh. We get to having fun and joking around, and just because we’re so used to it and, we’re having a good time, that we have to kind of stop and start over because we have to get our game face on to be in the moment.”

Spike EVP Sharon Levy told RealScreen that the network is responsible for the increasingly outrageous challenges, by telling producers what kinds of challenges they want to see. “We’re always giving them these categories that we feel are uncastable, and yet they always deliver,” she said.

Also interesting: the show is part of Spike’s strategy to become a broader network, not just one for young men who are entertained by Jon Taffer screaming incoherently at people about obviously set-up situations. Of course, there is still shouting and pushing. “We immediately realized that it would skew more female than the stuff that had already been on the channel,” Levy said.

The show lost viewers last season, but grew its 18-to-49-year-old viewers by 252 percent.

The show is produced by Original Media, and Original’s Glenda Hersh told RealScreen, “These days it’s hard to get a show launched, it’s hard to get a show to reach a second season. For this show to reach 100 episodes and still be as strong as our show is, it’s a real testament to the concept, the format, the producers, the network and the support of the show, which is really spectacular.”

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about Andy Dehnart

Andy Dehnart’s writing and criticism about television, culture, and media has appeared on NPR and in Vulture, Pacific Standard, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications. He has covered reality television for more than 18 years, and created reality blurred in 2000.

A member of the Television Critics Association who serves on its board of directors, Andy, 41, also directs the journalism program at Stetson University in Florida, where he teaches creative nonfiction and journalism. He has an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing and literature from Bennington College. Learn more about reality blurred and Andy.

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about reality blurred

reality blurred is your guide to the world of reality TV and unscripted entertainment, with reality show reviews, news, and analysis. It was created in 2000 by Andy Dehnart. He's still writing and publishing it today.

reality blurred is regularly updated with highlights from the world of reality TV: news and analysis; behind-the-scenes reports; interviews with reality TV show cast members and producers; and recaps and reviews of these reality TV shows, including Survivor, Big Brother, The Great British Baking Show, Shark Tank, The Amazing Race, The Bachelor, Project Runway, Dancing with the Stars, Top Chef, and many more.

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