"The Contestants on This Show Are Amazingly Creative and Talented" - An Interview with Wickedly Perfect's Tom

RealityNewsOnline: Thanks for doing this interview! I think people will really enjoy hearing from you. First of all, how did you hear about Wickedly Perfect?

Tom: My wife and I were on the CBS website buying a Survivor buff for my younger son. We saw a teaser ad for the application and started filling it out for fun.

RNO: What exactly about the show appealed to you?

Tom: I think we have a lot more two-career families out there that require the husbands to be accomplished at some of the domestic household responsibilities as a way to share the load with their wives. Over the years I've become a self-taught gourmet cook, excellent event planner… and I am frequently sought out for advice on questions of style and design. I thought it was time for a domestic icon who can fix both a pâté and a toilet.

RNO: Did you connect with any other competitor?

Tom: Believe it or not, I am pretty friendly with all of the other contestants. As they were eliminated, I was cooking five-course meals for each of them on two hotplates while sequestered.

RNO: Who did you see as your biggest competition?

Tom: I knew from the start that my personal style was more compatible with the Beavers, and I sensed they all had a clear vision and strong personalities. I also flagged Margo as the one to beat on my team.

RNO: Why did you offer to sacrifice your spot on the show for Kimberly?

Tom: Kimberly was very, very upset after the judging and I felt badly for her. I was trying to be a gentleman. I was also quite angry because we had agreed prior to the judging that we had failed the challenge as a team, and we would not point fingers at one another to save ourselves. I felt that Darlene violated that understanding and was not being particularly sensitive to Kim, who was crying right next to her. Believe it or not, I really wasn't calling the shots on our team; I intentionally tried to back off of that approach in the first challenge. The moments where you see me making suggestions were usually out of desperation because our mutually agreed plans weren't coming together.

RNO: Why did you change your mind?

Tom: Kimberly and I had a private chat prior to the judging where we mutually agreed she would be "targeted" for elimination automatically if everyone knew I gave her the immunity. That would have defeated the purpose of my offer to be voted off instead of her. So we pulled the team aside and told them to vote "fairly" with a wink. Please make sure to ask all of the other players if they had the chance to do it over again, would they still vote me off first. You will probably get a different answer.

RNO: What do you think was the biggest obstacle for your team during the apple challenge?

Tom: Not having a full team was our biggest obstacle. We had to share both the kitchen and the workshop with the other team and we had to start in the kitchen. By the time Kim and Dawn got back from the grocery, we only had about 20 minutes of kitchen time left during our first shift. Kim and Dawn then left for the fabric store and, unfortunately, they were also the wood-workers on our team, so we struggled quite a bit in the shop as well.

RNO: Did any of your teammates challenge your first impressions?

Tom: Everyone pretty much turned out the way I first thought they were… although one particular player seemed to confuse me at every turn.

RNO: How did you feel being the only guy on your team?

Tom: I didn't expect there to be many guys on the show, so I didn't really think about it until we got to the house and I realized I would be sharing a bedroom with all of my female teammates. That was a little weird, but fortunately, we didn't have much time for sleeping anyway.

RNO: If you could, what would you have done differently?

Tom: Anyone who knows me will tell you I would never serve soup in a pot the way it looked on the show. We were trying to keep the soup warm because it had been on and off the stove so many times that day. There was a china bowl with bouquet garnish right next to that pot where the soup was to be poured at the last minute. That didn't happen. For a full explanation, you should check out my recipe on the CBS website. I also would not have let Dawn talk me into the tacky table presentation with the fake hydrangeas. That is about as far removed from my style as I am from the moon.

RNO: Any regrets? Would you do the show again?

Tom: I have several small regrets because in spite of all the arguing that takes place on television, we all laughed more than you can imagine. I am a little sorry I came across as so dark-hearted and mean as I did. Once again, you should ask the other players if that's the "me" they know. It's not. Believe it or not, I'm still pretty popular with members of both teams. I'm also sorry I made that rambling speech in the rock garden. Because I was pretty confident I was leaving before the actual vote, I thought this would be my one chance to try and set the record straight on what had happened. Instead, I sounded like a bad H&R Block commercial - "reason number 74, etc."

My biggest regret of all is that I wish it would have been a full-blown talent contest like American Idol rather than a "game" with the accompanying sleep deprivation, interpersonal conflict, etc. The contestants on this show are amazingly creative and talented. You won't believe what they can create from virtually nothing with no time and limited resources. Sometimes the talent gets obscured by the drama. And in spite of all of that, I would probably do the show again. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I made some incredible friends.

RNO: Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. Good luck in the future!

Jenn Brasler is an aspiring writer from Falls Church, VA. You can e-mail her at luckyjenn@hotmail.com. She's trying to decide whether to use her powers for good…or evil.

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