Project Runway S13 E3: "Past, Present and Future"

PAST
Before we get into tonight's show, I have to rewind because Project Runway is pulling some total shenanigans this season.

Project Runway, in the 90 minute Premiere edition, cuts immediately from the runway show straight to the designers standing on the runway with the runway finding out who has been on the top and bottom. Once they find out, the non top/bottom designers go to the green room, and chit chat about who they think is top and bottom, but it's really casual and nothing ever really coheres.

Project Runway, in the shortened 60 minute Rerun edition, cuts immediately from the runway show to a mini collage of the designers doing a confessional voting for whom they think was the best and the worst. The Green room segment is cut out.

In episode 1, the majority of the designers didn't like Sandhya, and voted against her. So, when she won, there was a lot of animosity since they thought she was the worst.

In episode 2, the majority of the designers think that Fade should have won (7 votes), and 3 people chose Amanda (whose dress still makes me SO MAD...UGH). But, as we know, Angela brought Fade's team down, so he had no chance. A couple people voted for Angela, but, on the whole, the designers were split with the designer with the worst votes being Emily, getting 3 votes. Nobody liked those giant avant garde hips. The editors did not highlight any votes for Sandhya.

The thing is, this new segment is extremely important to the drama of the season. While the green room segment shows us the face the designers are giving to the other designers, the montage shows what the designers really were thinking, and they start resenting people who give them the opposite. Such as how I'm still completely resenting Amanda's win because...so awful. Worse than Angela's napkin dress.

That the "who we think should win and lose" is kept from the viewer of the premiere episode is baffling. I love this segment so much.

PRESENT
Today's episode is "Past, Present, and Future." Apparently Marie Claire magazine is 20 years old, and started in 1994. Which means that the Teutonic Goddess was just a Teutonic Princess-in-Waiting, Tim Gunn was in his 12th year at Parsons and becoming Assistant Dean, Nina was working as an assistant, and Zac was...14 and making such terrible sartorial choices he gets cut off.

Which brings us to the stupidity of this challenge. Marie Claire wants to see what the designers think that 2034 fashion will look like when filtered through the eyes of the present designer, inspired by some distant memory past.  Oh dear. Designing for the future is never good. Because, unless you're Elena and your aesthetic is already in the future, this will probably mean a lot of dark sci-fi bullshittery. Especially because the editor-in-chief referenced grunge as something she liked and that was coming back.

The whole goal of this episode is to try to bring the designers out of their Reality Show Archetypes and try to humanize everybody by bringing in their past, and letting them ping around with their past swirling through their head. But, the producers know that the challenge won't be enough on its own, so they make a bulletin board with a bunch of pictures of the designers from 1994. And...OMG, Sean has a sword! So adorbs!

Really, the past pictures can add only so much, and tear down so many walls. The picture they chose for Amanda has her wearing the first dress she ever made, and she humblebrags that she played bass guitar with her brother from...um...that one band? Yeah, she's going to remind you at every minute that her brother is her most interesting characteristic. Similarly, Angela had mastered her petrified look 20 years ago. However, this only lasts for a brief segment.

There's also a whole segment where people are gathering as friends (knocking off the team challenge from last week which was actually, like, yesterday in their time). The Texas Hipster says "Oh, yeah. I don't care about fitting in. I'm just gonna do my own thing. And, The Oppressed One comments, "Nobody likes me, but I'm just going to go with it. I don't care." You know, even though she bitched about it to Tim Gunn last week.

To be totally honest, the ones who, so far, haven't escaped the archetypes I proposed in the first episode have been Emily (The Mom), Sandhya (The Oppressed One), Angela (The Nervous One), Amanda (The Elder Statesman), and Mitchell (The Obnoxious Bitch). Really, I'm getting sick of both Angela's and Mitchell's shit. Unlike Adrian, I think a lot of this is in the editing actually. Because, we see Mitchell becoming friends with Char while Texas Hipster is having her "woe is me" aside. Amanda is having talks with Fade. Sean and Alexander are having private talks.

There are a lot a lot of moments that are in a 9 hour day, and the moments that the editors choose really create these characters in subtle ways. I think there's more to Angela that has been on display both in the work room and in the hotel room, but the editors choose not to highlight that. Sandhya gets a more even treatment, emphasizing her point of view, but she's still An Oppressed One. These are the stories that we're told from the producers and editing rooms.

The one person I really like is Char, whom I had previously labeled as a potential Sassy Black Woman, but is totally reminding me of some of the amazing women I met in Southfield (which, given she's from Detroit, about 15 miles away from there, of course). The editors are letting her be a full fledged woman. I like Fade (who had a really dour German picture from 1994...in a crop sweater...re-emphasizing his status as Dieter) and Emily, but Char is the one whom I'm rooting for purely based on personality. She's warm and funny and smart, and amazing.

But, enough about that...what about the clothes?!

As OB rightly intones (goddammit, I hate saying he's right), the majority of the people probably heard Grunge and went off on it. Alexander gets hung up on his single mother's afghan blanket, which means he was going future horse blanket. And, he had a complicated top that looked like it could have been fucking amazing, if he had figured out its construction. The lines were sleek and motorcycle future inspired by grungy past over a raggedy blanket, it would have been amazing. And, I think he should have send out the sloppy top.

The ones who are designing with bold color are Sandhya (pink and gold), Angela (fleshy pale peachy pink?), Char (bright blue), Fade (light blue), Korina (Yellow) and OB (greys with turquoise lining). Everybody else is doing grungy colors. It's a very dark runway show we're in for.

The most interesting story of fashion was Alexander. But, there's also Sean's last minute hat he makes from a Mood Bag. And, Mitchell is trying to make a story about Miami being underwater because global warming.

But, I'm cutting those stories short because, I have a few bones to pick with the judging this season. So, hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen, it's Runway Time, bitches!

Today, we're given two guest judges. The editor-in-chief of Marie Claire, and some fashion photographer who was granted a shallow-ass talk show that follows Project Runway. Which, has anybody actually watched the show? It's the worst post show ever. Can't we get Chris Hardwick to host? Or, even TLo? Or, may I suggest Adrian and I? We'll actually talk about Project Runway and not TMNT.

Anyways, Runway.

Kristine - I fucking love this look. This is, hands down, my favorite look of the night. It's sleek, it's past modern, and the jacket is kind of killer. The lines are gorgeous, and the white on white tonality is flawless.

Hernan - TRASHY. OMG. It's like some kinky fetish bra type thing with a harness, but with drape fabrics and...this isn't even the day to night challenge! This is just all sorts of wrong, and I really truly hated it. But, the back was gorgeous as hell.

Mitchell - I hate saying it, I like it. It's sportswear and it's tongue in cheek (comical is the word of the night). The lines being of completely different widths on the top and bottom kind of bug me, but the overall look is fun and sporty.

Amanda - I didn't hate it. That doesn't mean it's actually good. But, it's like 1970s crashed with the 1990s, and fucked up the model's hair. But, what was with the gold chain harness?

Angela - No. Terrible construction, even from afar. The idea was bizarre to begin with (a single white lapel that goes down and points at the girl's hoo haa? A sleeveless jacket in that fabric?), but the styling is so boring. Oh, Angela. This was terrible. And, the look of the label was copied from your first week's look that the judges hated. In the end, it's like the new look at the Clinique makeup counter.

Emily - Emily has the best model ever. She's got the best fiercest look coming down the runway, and the makeup Emily chose accentuated that strength. Then the clothing is just the best kind of warrior princess sci-fi inspired action movie outfit imaginable. The fit is great. And, it just works.

Samantha - Snooooooozzzzzzzeeee. A rich girl is going to school in the winter and threw on some random nice clothes.  SNOOOOOOOZZZZZEEE.

Kini - Its a nice pants and top with a decent cape. But, Emily's got you beat with almost the exact same look.

Fade - Here is somebody who had a very different future from everybody else. It's like, light blue and fluffy and feels like a European surrealistic future, perhaps in a Michel Gondry film? I really like it. It doesn't feel like the challenge at all, which is my favorite part about it. It feels like a take on the fashion we're seeing now and would be in the future. The best of the bunch.

Sean - BORING. It's clean, sophisticated, simple, modern, and very boring. There is no life in it, and it feels like somebody would have worn it in the 60s, the 90s, the 00s, the 10s, the 20s, and the 30s. In otherwords, it's moderately timeless and old hat. But, honey, your construction is shit.

Char - A miss. I mean, I love the two-toned pants. They're very graphic. But, the top doesn't belong with the pants, and it just doesn't work for me.

Korina - She has a terrible model who doesn't sell the look at all. But, it feels modern. Not of the future. Not of the past. But of the present. Like, "Hi, I just made a good looking outfit because I want to be safe."

Alexander - It's a potato sack dress in a bad fabric. I really feel I should hate it, but I'm so pessimistic about the future I really love it. This is what we're all going to be wearing in the future, you guys. It's really costumey though.

Sandhya - Speaking of costume, what the fuck is this? You guys might remember, I was a total Patricia apologist back in Season 12. But, this is just beyond Patricia. I can't even. It's like a costume from an Italian space opera of the 1970s that ripped off Star Wars. I'm not even joking, I can't deal with this. It's just awful.

Which...brings us to the judging. First of all, let me get this out of the way...what the fuck was Nina wearing? She was dressed like a disco ball...again? I swear I've seen her in similar awful tops. This kind of is as bad as the kindergarten alphabet sweater from Season 11. It's like she interprets the future as being a mirror computer. I was clawing my eyes out.

Besides this, the judging this season has been a season long trolling, I think. The winning dress every week has been calculated for #ProjectRunwayFail tweets. I liked Sandhya's first week dress, which was avant garde and announced her as a designer, and I could see the Indian styling to it. But, it wasn't the best of the week given it had some rough patches that needed to be worked out.

But, her dress this week was fucking awful. And, making her win again for something so inscrutably underdesigned, terrible and costumy. Heidi is right on this one. It was comical. And, it was awful. And, last week's had a similar DIY awfulness to it that just makes me think the winning design for the next few weeks are going to be college runway show shit.

The judges also were having fun tearing the dresses apart in the closer look. The editors really made them look cruel this week. And, they were even kind of cruel to the model.

But, when they were judging Alexander's look, I had a brief flash of them as judges in the Capital in the Hunger Games universe. They wanted the future to be fun and bright and silly and cheaply made! Alexander's dress may have been dour, but dour and dreary is not a valid criticism of the future when the present politics are so uneasy.

The worst dress this week was the winning look. But, I'm not too sad to see Angela go. Girl might be a better designer when she's not under pressure. But, the pressure got to her from when she was on the fucking plane, and she couldn't escape it because she was repeatedly on the bottom. Totally expendable, if only because she shouldn't be on a reality show.

FUTURE
The judges are going to smoke crack for awhile until it's fairly obvious their judging shouldn't be taken seriously at all.

The designers are going to be bitter at Sandhya for winning, when most probably felt she was going home, re-emphasizing her The Oppressed One archetype and storyline.

Korina will still be striving for villain.

We'll keep watching. Can you send us some burger coupons?

Random Observations

• Happy Birthday Adrian. 
• Also, I should say that this year is Project Runway's 10th anniversary season. Yeah, yeah, I know they celebrated their 10th back in Season 10. But, really, the first episode was aired in December 2004. Shhhh. 
• Tim pronounces quasi "QUAY SZIGH"
• Does unshaved Alexander in the confessionals remind anybody else of Zippy the Pinhead? Just me? It's mainly the hair which has been waxed to death
• Das Ist Kunst!

Project Runway S13 E1: "The Judges Decide"

First off, I owe everyone an apology. I've had a pretty crazy (but in a good way) kind of week, and PR coming back totally slipped my mind. Which is why it's been 5 days since the episode and I'm only just getting around to writing up the review, and for that, I am deeply sorry. Please forgive me, and then tell everyone you know that Project Runaways is back and will have more timely reviews up for the episodes for the rest of the season.

Secondly, maybe don't tell anyone about the show being back because to do so would be to subject them to this 13th season and if the first episode is any indication, that might be a punishment. You'll tell your friends, "On man, you've got to watch Project Runway and then follow this great blog that recaps the episodes! It's so much fun!" And then they'll watch it and they'll think you hate them for forcing them into such a shit show, and they'll never speak to you again. They'll move to the African safari and change their name in order to escape someone who must have so much animosity towards them and then they'll die alone of dysentery while wild animals gnaw on their feet. Friends don't let friends die of dysentery; as such, keep them away from Project Runway's 13th season.

Or maybe that's me being a bit harsh, but I watched the entire episode and left it thinking that after the full year of the useless PR knock offs Lifetime forced through, the producers of our little gem of a show somehow forgot how to make good reality TV. The episode starts with Tim telling us that there are 18 designers which will immediately be cut down to 15 in the first moments of the show. If you're anything like me, you watched these opening hours minutes wondering why we were subjected to such a thing. Instead of actually paying attention to what was happening on screen, I dedicated all of my brain power to discovering an answer. I came up with these distinct possibilities:

1. The producers hate us and thought, "Fuck it, we can waste their time with this ridiculous bullshit which should have all been taken care of before our cameras even started running!"
2. The show still has no idea what to do with its extended run time and decided it'd be fun to jerk off for the first half hour and hope no one noticed. No really, though, can someone tell me how long it took for us to get to the actual challenge? I downloaded found a copy of the episode without commercials, so on my copy it took like 20 minutes, but I'm guessing it was closer to 30 for others?
3. The producers thought this would give the viewers the chance to get to know the designers just a little bit better than the first episode usually does. More on this a little bit later. 

Either way, it all boils down to the same thing to me: stupid, boring, waste of time, and I probably should have went for a bathroom break instead of watching it. But let's examine what we might have learned about the contestants during this snooze fest of an episode. I do this because it brings up some good points and also because I have no desire whatsoever to actually engage with this episode on a point by point basis.

In his quick rough draft write up of the episode, Julius listed out the roster for the season as follows:

• Amanda Valentine: Originally from Season 11, Sister of Maroon 5.
      Reality Show Personality: The Elder Statesman
• Korina Emmerich: White-looking American Indian from Eugene, OR who designs for NYC woman.
      Reality Show Personality: Wannabe Villain
• Jefferson Musanda: Black Male, Hip Hop Dancer.
      Reality Show Personality: The Eager Beaver
• Emily Payne: San Francisco punk mom with a kids line
      Reality Show Personality: The Mom
• Sean Kelly: New Zealander who designs androgynously, and New Order Replacement Star
      Reality Show Personality: The Brit
• Char Glover: Single Black Woman from Detroit
      Reality Show Personality: Sassy Black Woman
• Kristine Guico: Grey Haired woman?
      Reality Show Personality: The Soon-To-Be-Cut Quiet Type
• Alexander Knox: The Tall Gay Guy with Hidden Style
      Reality Show Personality: The Affable One
• Mitchell Perry: South Florida guy with bad clothes; Zac Posen might want to sleep with him
      Reality Show Personality: The Obnoxious Bitch Who Throws Shade Because He's Untalented
• Carrie Sleutskaya: Babygoth who can design
      Reality Show Personality: The Youngster
• Hernan Lander: Spanish Guy who has previously shown at Fashion Week
      Reality Show Personality: The Hispanic
• Samantha Plasencia: Texas Hipster not from Austin
      Reality Show Personality: The Hipster
• Kini Zamora: Hawaiian who designs in denim
      Reality Show Personality: Hawaiian (yes, it is a personality type unto itself)
• Fade Zu Grau: The elder German who has a moment with Heidi
      Reality Show Personality: Dieter, Gay Edition
• Angela Sum: Asian immigrant, Computer Engineer
      Reality Show Personality: The Quiet Nervous Talented One
• Sandhya Garg: The Subversive Indian
      Reality Show Personality: The Oppressed One

For what it's worth, I read through his draft before I watched the episode and I thought it was probably a bit harsh. But then he e-mailed me and I watched the episode. His e-mail read thus:

I dunno if it's clear in that post, but one of the things I was also trying to do was point out that this season's characters were dangerously falling into both cliches and racial stereotypes to an extreme I don't remember it being in Project Runway. I dunno if I'm being overly sensitive, but everybody just seemed to be fitting a little too succinctly into various tropes. It was the Hispanic dude and the nervous Asian woman who were setting off my cliche-dar.

He gave me leeway to disagree with him if I felt the need to, but here's the thing I was left with after watching the episode: I neither fully agree nor fully disagree with these points. In the cases of certain contestants (Hernan, Mitchell, and Angela to be sure) I think he's on point. These people verge almost into caricature in their time on screen. But I didn't leave the episode feeling like that was the fault of the producers or the editors so much as just who these people are. Hernan doesn't have a strong grasp of English, which is clearly not his first language, and there's no real other way for him to be portrayed. Angela probably was raised in a house and a culture that frowned on failure which made her hypersensitive to the possibility of failing, and a bit neurotic. And everything Mitchell learned about being gay came from the sassy gay friends on sitcoms and the internet, and he never really developed beyond that. If this is who these people are, and I don't doubt for a second that it is, then can we criticize them or the show too much for showcasing that? This is a slightly different issue (in my opinion) than the way the episodes are edited to make the drama and the fights seem like much bigger deals than they actually are. With the exception of villains, who I think we all know are made by editing more so than their own actions sometimes, how much do we think reality TV creates character types?

But that isn't to say that these kinds of tropes aren't being used. I won't shame Julius, or anyone for that matter, for looking at this episode and seeing nothing deeper than caricatures because this is one of massive ways in which I think this episodes fails. Remember earlier when I said I thought the producers were attempting to give us a little bit more on the designers this episode than they tend to in the first episodes of past seasons? Well the effect of that here is actually the exact opposite of what they intended. Because we spend something of an inordinate amount of time with so many contestants, we find ourselves incapable of actually learning anything about any of them beyond the surface. Never is this clearer to me than in the workroom where we glance over everyone's design and back story ever-so-quickly before rushing off to the next person. It feels like Sean only barely gets into his "Moved from New Zealand" story before we're rushing off to talk to Angela. We whisk on over to Mitchell talking about his typically whimsical looks, and then quickly cut to Sandhya dying her fabric without any real context to Mitchell's statements. I don't know these people well enough to know anything beyond what I'm being told and what I'm being told feels like nothing. Cap all of that off with Tim visiting pretty much every fucking person in the workroom as quickly as possible, and you're left with no real people--just blurs of personality types in the distance.

So that's the fundamental problem that I had with this episode. With so much time being taken up with the pointless exercise at the top of the hour, we weren't left with much time to actually buckle down with the people who would be on the real show for the next number of weeks. And when we do get to the portion of the show that would be dedicated to them, be glance over way too many of them to get a good feel for anyone. What they should have done is start the season like they always do: give them a straight forward kind of challenge, and then only follow a handful a people (probably the contestants who'd end up in the top and bottom by the episode's end) and let us get to know them a bit better. Trust that we'll have enough time to get to know the rest as the season pushes on.

But pacing problems aren't the only issue with this season premiere; let's head out to the runway to catch a glimpse of the final nail in this episode's coffin. Guest judge tonight is Julie Bowen from Modern Family. In truth, Heidi said Modern Family and I got excited thinking I'd see the love of my life, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, but then she said Julie, and I rolled my eyes and realized an already bad episode was about to get so much worse. To her credit, I thought Julie was a good judge, but no one makes me happier than JTF, so screw it.

Sandhya: I want to give her credit for having a vision that is all her own, but I really hate this look. It isn't functional at all, and the unfinished element (purposeful though it clearly is) makes it look less than fashionable too. And the fabric is hideous no matter what the dye job might have been attempting. I hate it!

Angela: This look almost could have been worth it, but the horrible fit issues and the plumber's crack in the pants just dooms it. I really like the color of the top, but it doesn't really seem to do anything. There's a design element to it (by which I mean it doesn't look like just a standard and simple top), but I don't think it enhances anything. She's got a style that leaves me feeling like I wouldn't mind seeing more from her, but this was a swing and miss on her part.

Alexander: Here's someone else that I think has good ideas that maybe needed just a little more execution to pull it all together. I don't hate the look; I like the cowl style neckline even though I don't love the final shape of it, and I think the two fabrics he chose compliment each other well even if I don't think that they're all that pretty individually. In the end, it's just a baby doll dress with an interesting neckline. But it's OK.

Sean: This is the first look on the runway that I honestly loved. The front is well designed, the color blocking is beautiful, and the back took my breath away. The open back combined with that slit gave it a great sex appeal. I like it a little less looking at the pictures. It's got an odd fit to it which makes the model look like she's got a bit of a baby bump from the side, but on the runway, I seriously loved it!

Carrie: I honestly wanted to hate this look, but I didn't. I think the neckline and the keyhole cut out were just adorable. the shape along the hips was interesting, and not in a bad way, and the whole thing came together to be nice. I expected something a lot worse from her for some reason, and so I was pleasantly surprised by this.

Samantha: My exact notes read: "Huh. So that happened I guess." This is an example of someone being about as simple and boring as possible in order to just be safe, and congrats since she got her wish. But I didn't feel like there was anything to take away from this look at all.

Mitchell: Messy is the only thing I took away from this look. Everything from the design to the execution to the model's styling just screamed messy as hell. I hated it!

Kini: It's pretty, but I find it too literal. It's a Spring dress with a floral pattern. Yawn.

Jefferson: What the actual fuck happened here? Horrible fit on the top and the bottom, two pieces that don't know what they want to be and have no business going together. Just no! All around no on so many levels. And I haven't even gotten to the abundance of butt cheek visible when she turns around. Tasteless and yet boring at the same time. Now there's a feat.

Emily: I honestly don't know how I feel about this. I love the dress and the color of it, I don't hate the mixing of the two fabrics, but I honestly don't know that the fabric of the breastplate allows for what she wanted to do. There's an odd kind of bunching up around the neck of the dress flowing into that breastplate that just throws the look off a little. In the end, I don't hate it, but I don't think it's breath taking either.

Hernan: Boring. And another floral patterned Spring dress. I really wish no two designers had had the same fabric, esp this ugly ass fabric, but whatever. Or maybe I wouldn't mind if everyone had about the same fabric and just had to make it work? Idk, either way I hated this.

Korina: I'm guessing I'm in the minority here, but I seriously loved this look. It flowed, the fact that it was a one piece was interesting, and pants instead of a dress too, and I thought the train was really nice. The color was vibrant. Just loved everything about it, really.

Kristine: I love Kristine's look on the runway, but I hate it in the photographs. It doesn't photo well at all. The colors wash out and make it look a bit boring. But on the runway I thought it was great. The colors popped and blended well together, and look great against her model's skin tone. The amount of skin showing is literally perfect, and this finds the level of sexy that Jefferson's look missed so spectacularly. Plus, a dress with pockets! This is almost always a good thing in my book.

Amanda: Love it, love it, love it!!! I think that this shows why the returning designers have an edge over the competition: the look is clean and polished and shows she knew how to maximize her one day time limit. It may not be the most unique or innovative design on the night (though I think the pattern on the pants and the fine details on the back of the top suggest otherwise), but I thought it had a refinement to it that a lot of the other pieces were lacking.

Fade: It's possible that I might have a bit of a crush on Fade. I loved all of his little Atheist clothes and jewelery throughout the episode, which I thought did a better job of informing me of who he is than anything the producers choose to tell me about any of the other contestants. But I say this in order to say that I liked his look without knowing why I liked it. So there's that.

Char: I liked it. And that's honestly all I had to say about it one way or the other lol.

Ok so Jefferson, Mitchell, and Angela end up in the bottom three, which is no big deal, but then Char, Sandhya, and Amanda were in the top. Or well, Amanda is asked to stick around, I don't know if her critique really sounds like the look was firmly in the "top" since the judges sound like they're just split on it. So why not make her safe and allow us to hear from Sean, Fade, Kristine, or Korina? All of whom I thought had strong looks and probably could have left the judges a little more unified. Keeping Amanda on the runway is an odd choice, but naming Sandhya the winner is something that honestly makes no kind of sense to me at all. This is another look the judges are kind of split on with Heidi loving it (surprise surprise) and the others being complimentary but no one really gushing. Julie's points about the messiness of it make perfect sense, but in the end, she beats out Char whose look had way more finish to it. It might have left me feeling underwhelmed, and as such I have no clue why it makes it into the top 3, but at least I liked it whereas Sandhya's I hated. So Sandhya wins and Jefferson goes home (which is deserved enough not to make anyone too upset, I'd guess), and ultimately the door is opened for some really odd and probably inconsistent judging this season. Or maybe I'm being too harsh? Maybe the winning look was a lot better than I'm giving it credit for and the 4 or 5 looks that I think deserved to be on the stage in its place are really horrible. I admit every time I start a season of this show that I know nothing about fashion and episodes like this serve to remind me of that fact. But either way, I left this episode feeling like if this is what we have to look forward to, this is going to be one long and unpleasant season indeed. Now might be a good time for us Runaways to actually take hold of our namesake and hit the bricks.

Stray Observations:
-- Sorry again that it took so long to get this up and running, and also sorry that the finished product is so long. With so little meat on the bones of the actual episode, I think we were left with a lot of *other* stuff to talk about. Plus the earlier episodes and their larger number of contestants tend to leave a lot to talk about when the runway comes around. Maybe we shouldn't touch on every single look that walks down the catwalk? What do you guys think?

-- Tim says something about this season being "Lucky number 13." I think you've got that wrong, you fabulous man, you.

-- Not to harp on the subject too much, because I honestly do think that Julius makes great points about the stereotyping in this season, but one of the places I think his outlook falls through just a little bit is with Char. I think we've seen black women on reality shows who were way more "sassy black woman" than she actually comes off. I honestly found her to be way more down to earth low key than I expected.

-- As much as I'm kind of crushing on Fade, Sean is clearly going to be the contestant I'll have to work on not drooling over in these reviews every week. Just too cute for words.

-- Where the FUCK is HMG?!?!? I didn't watch any of the waste of time that was the intervening seasons of the show all last year, but did something happen to oust him? I mean what's the point of the show without HMG?

-- Lastly, in case anyone's interested, I'm actually recapping each episode of So You Think You Can Dance over on my own personal blog. Feel free to join me over there if you want another companion to your summer Reality TV viewing. In the mean time, everyone spread the word that we're back for this season of Project Runway and let's get our great community and commenters  back over here to have some fun for the next few weeks.