I missed the most recent episode of Project Runway, I think. The fact that I'm not sure is itself a shock. I've been a diehard fan of Project Runway since day one, when Austin Scarlett fashioned a luxe gown out of corn husks in the first-ever unconventional materials challenge. But now, 22 seasons in, the show feels like a cynical imitation of its own worst eras.
This comes from spending too many decades watching too many reality competition shows, but there are little things off with this iteration that make the show not feel like itself. The biggest example is the soundtrack. Now, Project Runway never had an original score. It relied on a library of music shared with a lot of other reality competition shows (in fact you can hear old music stings that Project Runway used first in Drag Race to this day). So it's not like we're missing something remarkable.
The problem is what those generic bits of music have been replaced with: those damn soulless pastiches of modern pop music, prefabricated with the most basic lyrics imaginable and available only in snippets. Why show that a contestant is a "boss bitch" who "makes money moves" when you can have a generic song sing it?
But maybe the show needs to rely on a sing-not-show ethos because they're working with 20 fewer minutes than nearly every other season of the show? Reality competition shows default to 60 minutes (without commercials) nowadays, so Project Runway's truncated runtime sticks out every time you hit "play" on a new episode.
This ultimately hurts the designers. With 20 fewer minutes, the show can't color in the contestants with anything but the broadest strokes. There's no depth to them besides the most top-level adjectives: old, weird, shy, bitchy, Russian, etc. More screentime allows the editors to craft more compelling, nuanced stories — like self-taught underdog Kelly from the Deli's scrappy journey to the finale in Season 14. Less screentime means that the show exclusively focuses on "drama," the designers being bitchy to each other and bringing past feuds into the workspace. We know more about Bi and Bryan's rivalry than anything else.
Proving my point: look at Josephmcrae (all one name). The only designer to appear in both of the Freeform seasons, he's also the only one to have a clear storyarc, from braggadocios rookie to challenge winner — because he's had two (partial) seasons of airtime.
The show kinda sidestepped this problem last season by casting Utica from RuPaul's Drag Race, who — for fans of both shows — came with a pre-awareness that allowed Utica's Project Runway storyline to start in medias res. Those in the know were invested in her journey from the start, and the season benefitted from that. But this season? It's almost as if Project Runway was angry at how well Utica — I mean Ethan — did last season, as if the Drag Race of it all outshined the Project Runway of it all. Why else would the show cast two Drag Race alum this season — Plane Jane and Q — only to immediately chop them in the bloodbath eliminations of the first two episodes? All of the press I saw before Season 22's premiere focused on Plane and Q, the excitement of seeing drag performers able to prove themselves as versatile fashion designers. But Project Runway said "not again." It felt petty.
The focus on drama over design is pervasive, eroding everything about the show — including the lower-thirds. Reality competition shows have used lower-thirds (the identifying text that appears at the bottom of a confessional, usually containing a name, home city, age, specialty, etc.) in jokey ways before, but always sparingly. New Project Runway deploys them every single time a designer talks onscreen, usually popping up as a sassy or sarcastic period on their comment. For example, a designer might say something snippy about how another designer is behaving, and the lower-third would change from a designer's specialty to "sew over it." Get it? It's a pun. This tiny editing choice, which appears dozens of times per episode, just adds a layer of cynical detachment to the whole thing. Even if a designer is saying something sincere, does that sincerity still show once it has a snarky veneer slapped on it?
In addition to getting less screentime and having their confessional moments manipulated by forced catchphrases, the show refuses to offer any closure on the storylines it tries to tell by cutting off before the elimination, turning it into a cliffhanger. Viewers are now forced to wait a week to find out who's going home. This flat-out does not work in reality competition shows. It fundamentally misunderstands the format of the genre. I went into all this while recapping last season, so, I'm taking a cue from new Project Runway and leaving you in suspense with a link to another article.
This new era had a bit of promise last year because of the new host, mentor, and judge setup. These are the people that we will see every episode, every season. The contestants are the heart of the show, these people are the spine. Project Runway now has a severe case of scoliosis.
First, the complete omission of Tim Gunn from the revival will never not feel cruel. I don't blame Heidi Klum, because Tim Gunn doesn't seem to blame Heidi; those two were inseparable through 16 seasons of Project Runway and three seasons of Amazon's Making the Cut. And as much as I do love Christian Siriano, as a personality and mentor, it does not feel right having Heidi there without Tim Gunn. That's partly because Heidi has no dynamic with Christian, not like how she had with Tim. I had hope one would emerge, but it hasn't. Heidi barely feels like a presence on a show that is nominally her own.
As angry as I am about Tim's abandonment, I'm almost there with the show's treatment of Nina Garcia — the only person to be part of all 22 seasons of the show. Nina remains the platonic ideal of a competition show judge. She is tough but never mean. Her praise means a lot because she has the industry cred to back it all up. She's also great TV because, decades into the game, she somehow still feels like a real world professional and not a professional TV personality. You get the impression that Nina is there on her lunch break, and I mean that in a good way. So ... where is she this season?
That brings me to the two people that the show has brought in, one to ostensibly replace Nina and the other to complement (lol) Nina's judging. Replacing Nina is supermodel Tyra Banks, on paper a fine addition to the show. But girl, the timing is awful. Tyra's addition to the show comes on the heels of Tyra's major mainstream heel turn in the Netflix docuseries Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model. If you missed it, just know that Tyra was low-key outted as a megalomaniacal sociopath. She's filed a defamation suit against Netflix. While this season was undoubtedly filmed before that doc's most shocking moments took over social media, it's not a good look for Project Runway to be involved with her. Oh, at all.
And then there's Law Roach.
Law Roach is if you put the utter bitchiness of Michael Kors and the incisive cruelty of Janice Dickinson into one person. Law's style of aggressive, dismissive, and unhelpful judging has remained consistent through three reality competition shows: HBO Max's Legendary, Drag Race, and now Project Runway. The thing is, there is a place for Law's rudeness on TV, because having a judge literally challenge a contestant to a fist fight in the parking lot (as Law infamously did on Legendary) makes for memorable television. And on Legendary, a show where the stakes felt incredibly high and most of the performers and all of the other judges were tough enough to clap back at Law, it felt weirdly appropriate. And Law tends to let his guard down on Drag Race, where the fashion leans way more towards camp and the avant-garde. Thus, he behaves more like a messy drunk cousin who is a blast at a wedding but you are glad lives a few states away.
None of this works on Project Runway. Law comes across as a bully every week. There's Law calling veteran designer Aaron's lion-inspired look "disgusting," prompting Aaron to say in a confessional that he "does not need to be put down in order to learn a lesson." Then there's the way he comes for Josephmcrae's flamboyant confidence every week in particular is textbook hypocrisy and has nothing to do with the work Josephmcrae is putting on the runway. As Josephmcrae says to-camera, "I'm here to be judged for my garments, not my character."
And putting Law and Tyra together, as seen in the "deliberation" for Episode 5, is a recipe for gay chaos. When Law doesn't agree with the majority's pick for a winner, he pouts and starts filibustering, delaying the decision and pushing Tyra — Tyra — to accuse someone of overstepping. Heidi looks so confused, ignored, and checked out that she can't even step in. It's messy TV, and Project Runway is better than that.
I don't know what can be done to save Project Runway at the moment, short of either getting rid of Law Roach and Tyra Banks or finding a host with more gravitas and diplomacy than both of them. As it stands, new Project Runway just feels cruel, and I like my fashion cruelty-free.
