‘Best Ink’ season 3 preview: More drama, more ink, and more entertainment

On Wednesday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time, Oxygen will be bringing back a personal favorite to the air in “Best Ink.” What better way to sit down and relax after a long day of holiday shopping / work / anything else that’s happening in December? The first thing we have to say here is hats off to the scheduling department for starting up the show at a time when many others are going off the air for a little while. It allows for an opportunity to get people hooked during that winter hiatus, and they won’t leave even when other stuff starts back.

We’ve already caught the premiere, and without giving anything away, let’s just say that it is going to be more of the show that you’ve watched the past two cycles. There are flash challenges, ink challenges, and also the same judges and host in Pete Wentz. The only thing that has changed is the crop of tattooers, and there are 14 of them this time instead of the 12 that were around last season.

Granted, this also means that there are still some of the same flaws, namely that we still don’t care about the skins’ stories nearly as much as the art that comes out at the end. (This is the same issue we had with “L.A. Ink” for many years.) But one thing that we do really like is that it doesn’t feel like a lopsided competition. From the premiere onward last year, it felt obvious that Teresa was going to win based on the angelic edit that she was getting. It was almost like the producers were starting to legitimately feel like she could do no wrong. This group feels a little more balanced, though there are three or four artists who seem a little behind in the curve.

You’re probably not going to know the names of all the contestants by the end of the premiere (you’ll be lucky to even remember half of them), but what we are mostly pleased by is that there is some good drama across both challenges, and the promise of more to come when you have these sort of big personalities. You would think eventually that these tattoo competitions would run out of talented artists, but it hasn’t happened yet.

If you want to check out some more “Best Ink” coverage from last season, be sure to visit the link here. We’ll have a full review of this premiere episode immediately after it airs.

Photo: Oxygen