TV - "I Hope Her Model is Full of Candy" (Project Runway: All-Stars; Episode 1)

Before talking about tonight's premiere, okay, yes...I watch Project Runway.  Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for pretty much any reality competition show (that doesn't involve dancing, at least).  I particularly like the shows where the contestants actually get to an exercise a skill or craft, such as Top Chef and, yes, Project Runway.  So, get all the jokes out of the way now.  Done?  Much obliged.

Tonight was the premiere of Project Runway: All-Stars, and with much fanfare, 13 of Runway's prior hotshots take to the catwalk again for...well...for an actually pretty spectacular prize package.  The new host, Angela Lindvall, was rattling stuff off so fast, I was only able to catch a few things (e.g. year-long guest editor of Marie Claire, $100,000 in cash), but all in all it totaled around half a million dollars.  Not too shabby.

So who are the returning contestants?

• Season 1: Austin
• Season 2: Kara
• Season 4: Elisa, Rami, Sweet P
• Season 5: Jerrell, Kenley
• Season 6: Gordana
• Season 7: Mila, Anthony
• Season 8: Mondo, Michael, April

I started watching in Season 2, so I actually recognize most of these contestants.  I could have still used a little reminder of the personality of each, though, and it seemed that the producers decided to forego this seeing as it was an All-Star season.  Because of that...it felt very sudden in terms of a start to the series.

And how did we start?  Finding out that Heidi, Nina and Michael are out as judges, and instead we have the aforementioned Angela "Poor Man's Heidi Klum" Lindvall, Georgina Chapman, and Issac Mizrahi.  And the opening task?  Dress up your model in a recent creation that represents who you are as a designer and share with the class.  Pretty simple, pretty straightforward.

Except later, we find out the second part of the task: develop a second outfit inspired by the first one, but using only materials found at an "Everything's a Dollar" store (with $100 in shopping funds).  Yep, it's an "Unconventional Materials" challenge.  Everyone runs around, and since this isn't their first rodeo, they know not to use conventional "fabric" items to form their outfit...this won't "wow" the judges.  Well...except Sweet P, who relies heavily on colorful terry cloth towels to form her dress.

After shopping for materials (and foreshadowing some drama where April and Michael both purchase the same "clusterfuck of mops" with which to form a majority of their outfit), they return to their workroom where Tim Gunn...is not there waiting for them.  No Tim?  What the what?  We get...Joanna Coles (Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire)?  Fine. Whatever.  

And so the designers get to designing.  A few dramatic places for the story to focus on:

• April and Michael, having sourced the same slew of mops for their dresses, are developing pieces that look awfully similar.  Will this tank the game of either one?
• Austin accidentally melts a large hole in the front of his plastic dress with a hot glue gun.  Will he find a way to "make it work"?
• Elisa (famous from her season for using spit...yes, spit...to mark her fabrics while constructing her garments) is worrying her teammates with her out-there, flower child, hippie commune ways.  Will she snap?
• Gordana's dress, is looking more and more (as Mondo put it) like a pinata.
• Sweet P gets called out by Joanna for her terry cloth construction.

Well, when it comes down to the actual runway show, the top three designers were Rami, Mondo and Jerell, and the bottom three were pretty predictable: Elisa, Gordana and Sweet P.  And while Rami ended up winning for a very well-constructed dress, most of the attention up to this points had been on the dresses of the bottom three.  One confusing point, though, was the feedback given to Elisa...usually, you can tell very easily who's on top and who's on bottom, but the comments they gave Elisa were actually pretty encouraging...encouraging to the point where I thought they might have a "Top Four" and a "Bottom Two."

In the end, though, Elisa did go home, with the judges thinking that she just wasn't ready to be part of the competition.  This made the comments about her dress seem all the more condescending, as if they didn't want to hurt her feelings while giving feedback.  But...her dress WAS kind of out there.

So, who are my picks for the long haul?  I always thought Mondo and Rami were talented, so it doesn't surprise me they were in the top three...at the same time, I've always liked Kenley, so I'm hoping she sticks around for a while.  As for who is in trouble...I can see Sweet P picking things up a bit, but Gordana might be on a downward spiral and out next.