Let’s look at a breakdown of tonight’s episode:

9:00 – 9:11– discussion of the unfairness of last week’s win and elimination, picking of teams for the new challenge, description of this week’s challenge (create an entire collection), Garnier product placement, HP Touchsmart Notebooks product placement, ridiculous team meeting in which one group decides that a military and lace inspired collection is an excellent idea. Gretchen becomes the defacto leader of the menswear/camel team, the military/lace group lacks a leader, annnnnd commercial break.

9:12 – 9:14 – Commercials

9:14 – It looks like it’s the end of the commercials, but it’s just a Project Runway HP Touchsmart commercial featuring current contestants.

9:14 – 9:16 – Commercials

9:16 – 9:22 – Return to the military/lace group’s problematic planning meeting, where Peach begins to freak out. Gretchen, defacto leader of Team Luxe (ugh), notes that they’ve mutually agreed on many things. Trip to Mood, where obnoxious dancing takes place. Valerie compares designing a collection piece by piece to having diarrhea and vomiting at the same time, which does sound horrible, but which I don’t really grasp as a metaphor. Big drama over Michael Costello, who apparently can’t even construct a cowl neck

9:22 – Commercials

9:26 – 9:34 – Team Military/Lace has no idea how to suggest hairstyles. Lots of Garnier placement. “I’m going to use a tiny bit of the FiberGum putty. It just gives me a little more…control.” Tim checks in with Team Military/Lace, who reminds them that lace can easily look old, and that Casanova in particular needs to “youthen up” his look. Team Luxe is ambitious, apparently, and at the same time, their clothes are “ho hum.” After his harsh critique, Casanova wants to walk out, which means his other team members have to finish his look.

9:34 – More commercials

9:39 – 9:47  – Subtitled discussion in Spanish as Casanova has a break down, and his model is sent in to try to talk him down. Things have got to be rough when the best advice comes from his model. Michael Costello’s shirt is poorly fitted, AJ has nothing to put on his model, and Casanova manages to pick up a pair of scissors. Of course, Gretchen has ended up making pieces for nearly every look, and is now freaking out. Next morning, everyone shows up ready to work, even though Valerie describes the other team as “cray-cray.” Models show up, and are promptly pressed into sewing duty. More Garnier product placements. Tim shows up to warn everyone that it’s time to go to the runway, and a little pre-show trash talk kicks in.

9:47 – 9:50 – Annnd it’s the commercials.

9:50 – Another HP Touchsmart psych out.

9:50 – 9:52 – Return to actual commercials.

9:52 – 10:01 – We begin the runway show! We still have over half an hour of this program! Gretchen comments on the Team Military/Lace collection, which she feels has no flow. Team Luxe feels that their collection is coherent, thoughtful, understated, etc. etc. So of course, Team Military/Lace are the winners. They talk about the balance between hard and soft, and the difficulty of creating something that is both cohesive but representative of each designer. There’s so much Gretchen commentary that they actually cut back and forth between her backstage complaints and the judging of the winning team. In the Room of Regret, Team Luxe discuss runway defense strategy.

10:01 – Oh, apparently Lifetime has the How I Met Your Mother syndication rights. Oh, more commercials.

10:06 – 10:19 – All right, here comes the complaining. When asked to identify the weakest designer, Gretchen stumbles over not saying Michael Costello’s name, and then Gretchen Just. Keeps. Talking. Nina: “it doesn’t have any sex appeal, there’s no design, and the colors are…ghastly.” Gretchen is trying to do a 360 turn around by throwing Michael under the bus and claiming she actually hated the collection, and the judges aren’t buying it. Finally, everyone has to go through and claim every piece they made. Judges discussion quickly skips over the winners, and revel in the awfulness of Team Luxe. “It was hideous.” “I don’t understand, were you just bossing everyone around?” “It’s like jumping off a bridge, and it’s like, everyone’s going to drown, let’s drown together.”

10:19 – 10:23 – Yup.

10:23 – Really, another HP commercial?!

10:23 – 10:24 – Last commercial break.

10:24 – 10:30 – Casanova wins! It comes down to Gretchen and AJ, and Gretchen is in, of course, because everyone hates her. Poor AJ goes home. Tim totally calls out Team Luxe for letting Gretchen “manipulate and bully” them, and basically tells AJ that he’s going home because Gretchen was a jerk.

If the previous Project Runway format ran about 43 of its 60 minutes for about 72% actual programming, this new version runs 61 out of 90 minutes, giving us 68%, so that feeling of incredible commercial saturation is not just your imagination! What do you actually get for those extra 18 minutes? Mostly complaining. And Garnier.

Pictures will go up tomorrow as I get them!

The horror, the horror!

Remember how two weeks ago I was complaining that the Campbell’s Soup Can designs weren’t unexpected enough? This week’s offering of flapping petal-covered clown pants certainly helped make up for that. No one saw them coming, and while Nina groped for adjectives like “confusing,” “circus-like,” and “weird,” Heidi went straight to the point: “I think it’s hideous. It’s just bizarre.” Low points also included Janeane’s under-designed romper and poorly fitting jacket, (which looked like “a cheap mall outfit”), and Jonathan’s well-deserved complaints from his “very small” child model. He dressed her in an A-line dress with a tiny organza-layered bolero jacket, which she happily admitted was “kind of like pushing into my skin.”

It pleased me that while Jonathan got thrown under the bus for uncomfortable clothing, Seth Aaron won for his thoughtful, comfortable design. He mentioned specifically that he made sure to use “soft fabrics” and I had an instant flashback to childhood, where the sole measure of any clothing was whether or not it was itchy. It’s also hard not to love his adorable child model, who ducked behind the adult model before holding up the purse as her favorite part.

The nice thing about challenges like this is that it forces the designers to think outside their comfort zones, but falls in a useful middle space between “do whatever you like” and “design something out of material so totally absurd that it’s not at all reflective of what clothing should be.” The latter group is certainly fun television, but ultimately more about entertainment than fashion. Children’s clothing does exist, and as the booming children’s and pre-teen television market has made clear, products aimed toward children are a vibrant industry. Episodes like this make designers like Jonathan seem snotty and aloof, but also not that intelligent about the wide world of real people’s clothing.

Next week looks like a return to the “material so totally absurd” category, and from the looks of Tim’s responses, it’ll be a mess. As I, too, am ultimately more about entertainment than fashion, I say – huzzah!

The Campbell’s soup theme was less challenging than I would have liked, and the contestants were mostly interested in sending their models down the runway in enormous stop-sign colored dresses. Which I guess is okay, but my preferred techniques might have included: a dress made entirely out of Campbell’s soup cans, forcing the model to come clanking down the runway in a suit of soupy armor; a dress dyed red with Campbell’s tomato soup; a Warhol-esque application that involved sewn-on multi-colored fluorescent soup can artwork; or perhaps a dress printed with the nutrition information in enormous, serious sans serifed lettering, accompanied by a billboard-like hat that read simply, “SOUP.”

All I’m saying is, it was all right, but it could have been better.

The designers were no doubt held back in part by the presence and challenge of dressing “real” women, who required clothing that would look, you know…flattering. Despite this obstacle, a few designers managed to come up with dresses that totally ignored that request, most notably:

Jesus. (Jesus is the designer’s name, not my own exclamation of surprise. But notice how it kinda works both ways?) The best thing about this dress, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was the delicate shuddering and completely unmasked disgust it elicited from Michael Kors. “*Deep sniff* Where do I start? You basically took a checklist of everything that can turn tacky and combined it into one garment. Tight red satin, that short, plus the built in straps…”  And later, “Hmm! Hmm hmm hmm… The second best thing was the look on Heidi’s face as she refrained from commentary and then asked Michael Kors to give his opinion, clearly relishing the impending avalanche of criticism.

The judges all liked this dress from Maya, but for me it was borderline fugly. Even the guest judge’s comments seemed to encompass this reaction to the dress: “I did like it, but I wasn’t sure whether I should like it.” Maybe the idea of incorporating an abstracted heart shape into the bodice was cute, but the sash cutting across the front of the dress looked a little pageanty, and the pleating and folding seemed unnecessary and sloppy.

The winner this week was Amy, who made a dress that was well constructed and also normal-looking. Even though this week was something of a flop for outrageous reality show productions, the judges’ commentary alone elevated it out of the dullness of last season. I’m just waiting for the show to take its inevitable turn when there are fewer designers left and the individual personalities stand out a little better.

Team challenges are always a complete disaster on any reality show, and Project Runway is particularly good at finding situations that are stressful enough to make lots of contestants break down. Add to this an oddly high budget for materials ($500), a classic eleventh-hour requirement to make a second look, and the dubious condition that they base the new look on another group’s work, and it almost didn’t matter that the challenge itself (essentially: make a really great, fancy outfit) was pretty bland.

Where does that leave us?

Oh dear, Ping. Michael Kors was right – your model does look like she’s the Statue of Liberty, but he neglected to mention that in this incarnation, the Statue of Liberty is being swaddled in the special-order table linens for a Goth wedding. (Or, I suppose, a Halloween party). You were forgiven once, but it is impossible to accept two completely awful, poorly fitting outfits in a row, and even worse when there are actually three awful, poorly fitting outfits. Do you see what that other model, the unexpected eleventh-hour outfit model, is wearing? Her sunglasses are by far the most exciting things about her. The sunglasses, that is, and her smirk of schadenfreude.

Anthony admonishes his partner; their Vice President of McDonalds' dress

Aside from the Farewell to Ping tour, this episode was clearly built as a vehicle for Anthony, whose Southern Belle flamboyance was in full display. You’ve got to love a contestant who’s self-aware enough to mock his own dress as looking like a design made for the “Vice President of McDonald’s,” but my favorite moment was when he chided his partner for bickering in front of Tim Gunn. “Stop actin’ up in front of company, now, come on,” he stage-whispered.

I guess it looks a little like a butterfly. Or a superhero cape?

While I will admit that the top of Anthony’s dress does resemble chicken feathers, it seems no more “costumey” than the look that won, Mila’s oddly fitting penguin coat. It is cool, and graphic, and certainly looks more carefully made than anything else on the runway, but perhaps I just lack sufficient understanding of how you could wear it and not look like a Wacky Art Teacher Who Usually Wears Kaftans But Has Traded Them In For A More Menswear Look.

In any event, at least we can all be reassured that while Ping may be leaving, we won’t be left with a complete dearth of innovation (read: craziness) in her absence.

****

Just as a reminder, the last episode of Dollhouse is airing tonight. Despite my mixed feelings about the show, it is reliably fascinating, and as I am especially looking forward to tonight’s episode, there will definitely be a Dollhouse post on Monday.

****

And just because it’s Friday, here’s what famed detective Hercule Poirot looks like when re-imagined as a character in a Japanese animated Miss Marple/Poirot crossover television show. You’re welcome.

All that said (and wow, that was a really long first paragraph), I’m happy to cautiously report that season seven is looking promising. Everyone is back in New York, happily holed up in the familiar Parsons workroom, and Michael Kors and Nina Garcia have been on both of the first two episodes (as well as appearing in the preview for next week). Even better, the designers seem much more willing to experiment and be innovative. It’s difficult to tell what the major players and behind-the-scenes rivalries will be when there are still so many contestants, but I’m hopeful. It’s already looking good when the judges choose not to kick off a contestant, Ping, who sends her model down the runway with her bare buttocks in full view. No seriously – the model wore an ill-fitting skirt with an enormous slit in the back, the better to view her completely uncovered rear-end. And after some deliberation, the judges chose to keep Ping and send home Pamela, whose dress was merely boring and badly made.

Here we see Heidi craning her neck for a better view of the poor model’s naked behind.

Oh Michael Kors. I missed you and your….woah woah, did you always have a horrifying claw hand like that? Did you have to literally claw your way back onto the show? Are you going to skewer the contestants with your razor sharp talons? Is there some new claws in your Project Runway contract? (Covers face in shame.)

We say goodbye to the standard strapless minidress so that we can have another week with Burlap McShowyBottom. You’ve started off so well, Project Runway. Keep the fire alive.

• Thanks to Sunday night’s premiere of Amazing Race, I now realize it’s not that easy to herd ducks.

It's also always better to book your flights ahead of time. On *ahem* Travelocity!

• Last week on Project Runway, I discovered that my fantasy of seeing Dune stillsuits walk down the runway might not be that far off. Sadly, this designer was eliminated, but hope lives on.

This is the sketch for his dress - Borg! Scifi!

• The Show That Must Not Be Named will now have a slightly different name. That will continue to go Unnamed.

• On the Jay Leno Show last night, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss dealt with the problematic embargo against cross-network primetime guest appearances by figuring out how to advertise for CBS while appearing on NBC.

She also had "The New Adventures of Old Christine" printed on the bottom of her shoe

One annoying quality of this new season is the surprisingly high number of weepy contestants – or has it always been this way and I just don’t remember? Johnny gets a little bit of a pass on this, because at least he had a fittingly dramatic backstory to justify his emotional breakdown and the subsequent Tim Gunn lovefest, but the rest were just egregious. Ra’mon, who was apparently a med student in neurosurgery and then decided to become a fashion designer? I am not moved enough by your passion for clothing to find your tears endearing. Also, you say this about your career history: “I went to med school specializing in neurosurgery, and towards the end decided that it was one thing to have a career I could be really great at, it was another thing to have a career I could be passionate about.” Oh yes, I too weep for your dreams, incredibly skilled neurosurgeon who almost made it through med school before finding himself.

Ra'Mon the former neurosurgeon, trying not to cry; Tim Gunn comforting Johnny

Ari's transformative clothing

Other than that, it was the same, familiar situations, but this time set in LA. Mitchell sent his model down the runway essentially nude, and Heidi said some bitchy things about models pretending to be taller and skinnier than they actually are. Louise is really into vintage Hollywood. Malvin is into androgyny and doesn’t watch the red carpet because he doesn’t differentiate between “different colored carpets.” Another designer, Ari, is all about avant-garde, experimental clothing, which leads to this amazing sentence: “I’m really into the idea of transformative clothing that would go into a tent, that would also have water purification systems, and you would be comfortable in it.” I can’t really understand what she’s talking about, or envision what those designs would look like, but just based on her concept and some of the images they show, I think she’s actually trying to make us all stillsuits so we can survive the desert sands of Arrakis. And you know, I’m okay with that. Too bad Michael and Nina couldn’t understand the usefulness of scifi fashion and decide to eliminate Ari. You’ll regret it when we’re running a mélange-based economy, Michael Kors!

Project Runway and Top Chef have always been my favorite reality competition shows, because at least the standard drama, backstabbing and weeping is set within the context of people performing a skill I find impressive. It’s silly, the contestants are absurd but take themselves extremely seriously, there’s high tension and surprise, and it makes a nice break from trying to write carefully about amazing shows like Mad Men and upsetting shows like Toddlers and Tiaras. So, welcome back Project Runway. I missed you.