Thrills ‘n’ frills
There are two kinds of people in the world: thrill seekers and comfort seekers. Thrill seekers love sporting events and horror movies and fast cars. Comfort seekers love soft pants and chocolate pudding and fleece blankets. Thrill seekers enjoy it when their pulses race. Comfort seekers prefer for their heart rates to fall somewhere between “resting” and “comatose.” Thrill seekers like speed, action and excitement. Comfort seekers can’t move fast without thinking about wrist fractures and broken collarbones and those steel plates they put in your face when your cheekbone gets shattered. Thrill seekers watch suspenseful shows — shows about cops and lawyers and criminals and emergency room doctors and terrorists. Comfort seekers watch shows where celebrities learn to do the rhumba or fussy urban hipsters try to outsew each other.
But even though thrill seekers and comfort seekers are very different, both factions enjoy feelings of anticipation and suspense every now and then. If we didn’t enjoy feeling anxious and tense occasionally, then no one would keep a Jack Russell as a pet, weddings wouldn’t exist, and Jack Bauer would be just another schlub with no life outside of the office.
Harsh beginnings
[Spoiler Alert: If you haven't caught up with the first two episodes of "24" from last week, skip to the next section.]
Ah, but we do very much enjoy feeling apprehensive and panicked on occasion, and that’s why we heartily welcome the return of Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer is the Jack Russell of the counterterrorist world, a man who has single-handedly thwarted countless acts of terrorism on U.S. soil! Without Jack Bauer, we Americans would be like helpless little children wandering naked in a mine field, falling victim to one terrorist trap after another.
Or at least that’s what the evil mastermind of Season 5 of “24″ (9 p.m. Mondays on Fox) seems to think. Yes, the first order of business in his as-yet-unknown-but-probably-deadly plot was to frame Jack for former President Palmer’s assassination. Anyone who knew that Bauer was still alive had to die, too — all of which sounds like a lot of work just to prevent any interference from one guy, let alone one guy who everyone believes is dead and therefore one guy who shouldn’t hinder your master plan in the first place. Ah, but if you’re really going to enjoy “24,” it’s usually best to check your critical capacities at the door.
And anyway, aren’t you glad that the writers dreamt up a way to kill off two major characters in the first few minutes of the first episode of the new season? It’s funny how the death of major characters is a bummer at the end of a season, but at the beginning of the season, it’s perversely enjoyable.
Plus, the whole mess matches these messy times: The second we lay eyes on President Palmer, the calm, reassuring Daddy presence who stepped in and saved the day last season when President Logan’s head was flying off, our pulses return to their desired near-comatose state. And then — Shwip! Thunk! — Palmer hits the floor with a bullet in his neck. That’s right, Virginia. There is no Santa Claus, Barney is a big fake, your dog never went to heaven and there’s an Islamic extremist cabal brewing overseas that would like to see your privileged, lily-white, Judeo-Christian body torn limb from limb.
Palmer’s death was brutal — brutal in that unexpected, upsetting, swift and ruthless way that even a comfort seeker can appreciate. One minute Palmer is thoughtfully gazing out the window, the next minute he’s a goner. It wasn’t very melodramatic or touching, either, which made it all the more disturbing. And cool. It’s the kind of televised event that gives you that temporary glow you might get while huddled in your basement with your dogs, surrounded by cans of kidney beans, tuning in to the Emergency Broadcast System to see whether an Aquafina truck or a taco wagon is likely to drive down your street in the next month or so. You know, it’s horrible and scary, but it’s kind of exciting, too — at least until mealtime.
But that apocalyptic rush gives way to a flood of pure joy when Michelle and Tony finally get the car bomb that they’ve so clearly deserved for years now. How great was it to see Michelle go down? Hallelujah! And without struggling or suffering or getting on the cellphone and calling Tony “Tiny” Almeida and telling him how much she loves him, blah blah blah. No, instead it was just KABLOOEY! The funny thing is that Tony and Michelle were looking healthy and happy and rich and even vaguely sexy, for the first time ever — so naturally they had to die.
Of course, Tiny isn’t dead yet, he’s going back to the hospital to suffer and die slowly for the millionth time. Scratch that, he’s back at CTU’s incompetent medical unit, where the motto is: Minimize comfort, maximize pain and suffering unto agonizing death.
And then there’s the excellent addition of an insane first lady to the lineup, the perfect smart cookie having a serious Betty Friedan “I’m not crazy! No one believes me, but I’m not!” meltdown that harks back to the days when gals used to get institutionalized just for criticizing the unflattering cut of their husband’s dress slacks. The poor woman demonstrates to all of those ambitious, hopeful wives out there what kind of claustrophobic hell you land in when you marry someone really important — or, in her case, someone really ineffectual and insincere and sweaty and flinchy, but really important nonetheless. Don’t do it, girls! Put down the pink diamond and back away slowly!
But most enjoyable of all was the Chloe Gets Laid story line. Geeky Chloe, nerdy, troublemaking, whiny Chloe, has always been an oddly appealing, extremely out-of-place presence at CTU. Chloe represents all of us comfort seekers at home, watching the show. She’s the conduit for all of our anxieties, she represents all of our flaws, flaws that would quickly emerge in a pressure-cooker setting like CTU. Chloe embodies the best and the worst traits of regular, everyday non-heroes like you and me. And that means that when Chloe gets a piece, we all get a piece, chickens.
“I’m not doin’ that!” is Chloe’s bratty mantra. She’s the Bartleby the Scrivener of CTU, stomping her feet and crossing her arms and pouting. While the rest of the little expert technicians dutifully type away, Chloe rolls her eyes and treats matters of national security with the disdain that most of us reserve for clearing paper jams out of the office copier.
That classic, unlikely-hero satisfaction arises when Chloe is forced into dangerous situations even though she’s not a field agent. Somehow, when the shit hits the fan, she stays cool. OK, fine, she fired her gun at Palmer’s killer, who could’ve told Jack a lot more, had he lived. But remember last season, when she had to pretend to be the bad guy’s daughter, and then she helped Jack to evade the evil Chinese? (That was the plot, wienie dogs, I’m just summarizing, here.)
And who better to woo Chloe than an overconfident, slightly suspicious youngster underling? How great was it when Chloe told him that arrogance doesn’t turn her on? (So there!) You could practically see her palms sweating in that scene. And then the guy just looked at her arrogantly, and well, Chloe might not have been turned on, but all of us mouth breathers at home certainly were.
To top it all off, the denizens of CTU have a new Hobbit colleague, Sean Astin aka Samwise Gamgee. Hobbits are notorious for their comfort-seeking ways, so it’s tough to understand what Samwise (who’s Patty Duke’s son, in case you didn’t know) would hope to accomplish at CTU, but I’m guessing he’ll either be pesky, nefarious, tragic or all of the above.
In summary, “24″ is back with a serious vengeance. But will this be a great season or will it disappoint? Like the dutiful soldiers of CTU, we don’t have enough data to determine the outcome at this time. Naturally, “24″ is wildly inconsistent, and even when it’s firing on all pistons, it’s also uneven and dorky and campy and leaden and obvious. I think that’s why I love it so. As with Chloe, its weaknesses are also its charms. Welcome back, little stressed-out, sweaty-palmed buddies! We missed you!
Countering terrorism
If your regular dose of “24″ doesn’t provide you with enough jittery nerves and cold sweats to last you through the week, consider tuning in for the BBC program “The New Al Qaeda,” airing on the Discovery Times Channel (8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 28). During the first hour, “Frontline Pakistan,” BBC reporter Peter Taylor focuses on President Musharraf’s efforts to rid Pakistan of al-Qaida militants. Unlike some of our more reluctant allies in the fight against terrorism, Musharraf appears very genuine in his desire to rid his country of the scourge of Islamic extremists, particularly on Pakistan’s forbidding mountainous border with Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is suspected of hiding. However questionable Musharraf’s rise to power may have been, he’s currently fighting one of the most important fronts in the war on terrorism. And while it’s tough for comfort seekers to get amped up about any war, tracking down Osama bin Laden is a goal worthy enough for even the pudding lovers and soft-pants-wearers among us.
The second hour, “Jihad.com,” examines how al-Qaida has regrouped on the Internet. Taylor demonstrates how the Web is used to show footage of bombings in Iraq, sometimes shot from several different angles, and the footage is then circulated by a network of sympathetic webmasters. The Internet is also used as a recruitment tool by terrorists, and as a way of disseminating information on how to carry out terrorist attacks. While you’ve probably seen plenty of reports about terrorists organizing themselves online, Taylor’s account includes a crazy story about an ordinary American woman who took it upon herself to locate terrorists online by pretending to be interested in helping the cause. Oddly enough, she managed to lure in a young American in the service who wanted to help al-Qaida. Once the feds got involved and set up a sting, the man offered information to an agent pretending to be a sympathizer, and he’s now serving several consecutive life sentences in prison. Better watch what you say in those chat rooms, kiddies!
Unlike the quick and dirty reports churned out by the network news, “The New Al Qaeda” presents an in-depth, nuanced examination of the efforts to deal with international terrorism, one that may leave you wishing that Jack Bauer really existed.
Sew what?
After such a hearty dose of Armageddon, you’re definitely going to want to retreat into the warm, floaty-turqouise-chiffon-covered arms of Bravo’s “Project Runway” (10 p.m. Wednesdays). Now, I know I’ve written about this show before, but chickens, this is one of those programs — like the famed Drunk Asshole Hotel,” if you will — that’s worth discussing often.
Here’s why: “Project Runway” is the only show that I can think of that’s all about the challenge of being an artist in a world that gobbles up artists and digests them and then craps them out as shiny, watered-down, soulless products. As much as we enjoy purchasing these shiny, bland objects to shove into our walk-in closets and forget about forever, the soul of the artist dies a slow, agonizing, CTU-hospital-unit-style death for the sake of each one. (That’s what the soul of the artist does, anyway. The bank account of the artist goes “cha-ching” and the living room of the artist has a brand new shag rug in it.)
You rarely see true artists on TV, because true artists are people who are apt to do and say wildly unpopular things. Not only that, but many of them are compelled to behave in sociopathic ways — not for attention, mind you, since these confrontational twitches are usually just a side effect of their overall artistic vision, which occasionally involves hurling objects at other people’s heads to see the looks of horror and hatred on those people’s faces.
OK, fine, I have a soft spot for dangerously overconfident lunatics. Who doesn’t? Just look at Santino of “Project Runway.” He’s not exactly likable, but it’s beyond obvious that this guy is a true artist — he’s charismatic, he’s hateful, he’s smart, he’s incapable of taking other people’s feelings into account, he creates imaginative, odd, fantastic outfits, and he ignores the judges’ feedback entirely. A few weeks ago, when the designers were asked to create an outfit for Banana Republic, Santino responded to judge Michael Kors’ criticism by snapping that Kors’ clients were “older” than Banana Republic’s, and that more people have heard of Banana Republic than have heard of Michael Kors. Kors didn’t address this directly, but simply grimaced and blinked in that way that says, “I will personally ensure that you will never win this competition.” And last week, when the designers were challenged to make an outfit for figure skater Sasha Cohen, Daddy figure Tim Gunn saw Santino’s nutty feather and chiffon outfit and advised Santino to show a little restraint. Santino proceeded to cover the back of the outfit in 300,000 little slips of red and pink chiffon. Kors said, “To me, unless she was opening a Thanksgiving pageant and the Indians were chasing the turkey, I can’t even imagine.”
Plenty would say that Santino was being antagonistic simply for the sake of being antagonistic. But Santino’s refusal to take any advice isn’t just the superficial choice of your typical reality rube. He seems to believe that it’s only possible to create something pure and beautiful and special in a vacuum. Maybe he suspects, like many artists do, that sooner or later, the marketing Marys and the controlling-interest Carls and the publicist Peggys and the other whoring sea donkeys of the commercial world are going to step in and take his precious, inspired lump of clay and turn it into a Little Mermaid figurine.
Seeing this process in motion is what makes “Project Runway” so damn compelling. Santino may be insane, and he may spend the balance of his days without a shag rug in his living room, but he’ll never become the CEO of another figurine factory. Now of course plenty of great stuff comes from the intersection of art and commerce, but how often do you see someone who’s completely unwilling to compromise his ideals on television of all places? It’s refreshing, even if it’s a ticket to an early “auf Wiedersehen.”
And Santino isn’t the only talented, smart, entertaining idealist on this show. (Jesus, how many reality shows have more than one, let alone a whole roomful of them?) There’s Chloe, Nick, Daniel … Hell, even Andrae the Giant Emotional Wreck has shown a lot of pluck and originality since his first terrible design and subsequent weepy breakdown. This show is filthy with talented, interesting, petulant artists, smart, ruthless judges, and inventive, fun challenges — a thrilling combination for any comfort seeker.
The only way I’d like “Project Runway” more is if it were two hours long instead of one. After all, shouldn’t we be able to toss back strong drinks and gossip with these tweakers once all the sewing is done? Compare the way they casually attack each other around the apartment with the usual leaden, toothless “I know you are but what am I?” clashes between morons we’re offered on other reality shows, and the benefits of casting confident, smart human beings with functioning brains in their heads becomes all too obvious. Reality show producers, take note! Let’s begin a new era of reality casts capable of engaging in clever, snappy reparté, because the old era of blunt-weapon-toting dullards is definitely drawing to a close.
In summary
Thrill seekers save the world from terrorism. Comfort seekers save the world from scratchy pants. Santino saves the world from camera-friendly reality TV blockheads. Chloe saves the world from blandly effective heroes. Michael Kors saves the world from Paula Abdul. Then we all go shopping for shiny, soul-sucking products, share a big banana split with extra whipped cream on top, and thank our lucky stars that we’re not hiding out in the treacherous mountains of Pakistan. Not that it wouldn’t be sort of exciting and fun, at least until the lentils ran out and the mortar fire began…
Next week: Will Vic of “The Shield” finally get his comeuppance for all of his thrill-seeking ways?
Every now and then, a real character emerges from a reality show — not for being outrageously evil like Omarosa of “The Apprentice” or Johnny Fairplay of “Survivor,” but just for being himself. From his whimsical knit caps to his dishy cigarette breaks, not only was Jay McCarroll the frank, funny, sometimes bitchy voice of reason on the first season of “Project Runway,” but he also walked away the winner and was awarded $100,000 to start a new fashion line. With the second season premiering on Bravo (8 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 7), we checked in with McCarroll in New York to see if all his dreams had come true since his “Project Runway” victory.
I just caught up with the first season of “Project Runway,” so finally I know what everyone is talking about.
Yeah, it was good. I watched it, too, this weekend.
What was it like watching it for the second time?
I’ve seen it like a hundred times. I’m kind of addicted to myself as a character. I’m the leader of my own fan club. It’s good. You know, it’s been a really tumultuous year, so it was really nice to see it this past weekend and kind of get back to the purity of it, because at the time going there and filming this thing, it was really innocent, and I was a nobody. I pretty much still am a nobody. But it was just really nice to see what the whole thing was about, and to see how motivating it was, and how stressful it was. Now I know all the intricacies of business, and how network executives work, and it’s really kind of gross. So I’d rather be anonymous.
How did you learn more about the TV business?
From working on “Project Jay,” which is coming out in February [on Bravo], and being filmed for an entire summer. Because on “Project Runway” we were blind to it. We’d just watch it on TV. I didn’t have advance screenings or anything; I saw it when everyone else saw it. It’s fun to see how it got edited. But doing my own show, I had to be more involved because my name is attached to it, and just the hemming and hawing and back and forth about how everything works is kind of bizarre to me. I just figure people film it and someone edits it and they put it on TV, but there’s a lot more to a TV show than that.
What’s “Project Jay” about?
Just a recap from winning ["Project Runway"], and what my life has been after that, as far as looking for apartments in New York, looking for a studio space, trying to get licensing deals, fans interrupting me in the middle of my day, the Emmy dress that didn’t pan out — the drama on that one, God. You have to watch it; it’s pretty disgusting.
Whose Emmy dress were you doing?
Heidi Klum’s.
Oh my god!
It had all the best intentions, but it didn’t turn out so beautifully. You’ll see. It really is a roller coaster to watch. It’s like watching a full hour of me, the funny parts, but then on the flipside, the traumas that go along with being me, and my self-deprecating ways, and all that really sad stuff. And you meet my family a little bit more, and you meet my friends.
When you watch it, do you get tired of yourself?
I was just having this conversation with someone last night. I’ve learned to just treat myself as a TV character. I mean it’s me being me, but what you have internally inside of you is something different than how you’re being edited. I mean, we shot 200 hours of footage for an hourlong show. It’s interesting to see how a storyline is being built out of my existence.
Do you play to the cameras more than you used to?
Oh, I don’t play to the cameras. I’m just that person.
So you don’t think you’re more on when the cameras are on you?
No. Mm-mm. Hell, no.
Were the cameras ever off?
No. We had cameras pointed at our beds.
Who on “Project Runway” played to the cameras the most?
Definitely Daniel Franco, which is of interest to the second season as well, because he’s on it and he’s a cheese nut. He’s definitely the cheesiest person ever created. And of course Wendy [Pepper] played to the camera … People held back, definitely. Especially in season 2, because they know the formula and how it works so they’re going to be careful with their words, whereas we were like, “What the fuck is this show?” I mean, it could’ve been the worst show on TV. We didn’t know; we were just on it. We had no idea what we were doing. Our first judging process we were like, “Why is Heidi pulling those stupid buttons out of that ugly bag?”
So how do you feel about Wendy Pepper these days?
Oh, you know, just add her to the list of weird fame whores. She’s really doing a lot out there with “Celebrity Poker Showdown”…
You’re kidding.
She won! She beat Camryn Manheim and Kevin Nealon. I mean, of course I got asked to do “Celebrity Poker Showdown,” but I’m not going to do that fuckin’ shit. I’m a designer. I’m not like a kook. It’s fine for someone like Sammy from “Days of Our Lives,” but I don’t know. It’s a really fine line, and I feel like a lot of the designers that were on the show are having a hard time with it, because we were marketed as half designers, half TV personalities.
Going through this past year and seeing how disgusting Hollywood is and how queer people are and how ego-driven people are … It’s all about money and ego and “You’ve gotta stay in the spotlight!” and “Strike while the iron is hot!” and all that bullshit, and I just wanted months to fucking change my hair color, grow a beard, and gain 50 pounds in a cave. It’s retarded. It’s really hard dealing with people being like, “You’re great!” It’s really nice from a lot of people, but, with really nice comes “Let me e-mail you! Here’s my card! Let me call you and call you and call you.” And I’m like, who the fuck is this person that I met in a drunken stupor in a bar? Fame is weird. Now I’m on Out magazine’s Top 100 Gays of 2005, and I’m like, “You people wouldn’t have cared about me until now, and I didn’t do anything for the gay community. I just did my fucking work because I’m a creative person and all of the sudden now I’m something?” It just makes no sense to me.
Do you feel that contestants on the show have trouble saying no to things?
Oh yeah. And I did, too, for months. The first couple months I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do interviews for everyone!” and “I’ll consider making clothes for a dog for a celebrity dog-walking show!” But after a while, you’re like, “I’m not making a dress out of chocolate. The only charity I care about right now is me, and I’m broke.” So you have to be careful, and that’s where the Wendy Peppers and the Austin Scarletts of the world — you know, great for Austin, it seems like he’s doing fashion-related things, at least — but Wendy is jumping through tires on “Battle of the Network Reality Stars.”
Who’s doing the most in the fashion world?
None of us.
What’s that about?
It’s taking everyone some time. We’re trying to sort out what the fuck just happened to us. I’ve been trapped in my studio for a decade, and then nothing more. I would just make stuff and put it on a rack. Then you have that extreme media attention. I mean, why the fuck am I in People magazine? Why am I in Elle or Newsweek or Time? Why do these people care? And then you need time to process that. I think if you’re a weak individual and you’re not a thinker and you’re a fame whore, then you’ll be like, “It’s great! This is exactly how my career’s supposed to be!” But if you’re really cerebral like I am and really conscious and you’re just trying to find the light in life, and you can see through all that bullshit, then it takes more time. It’s taken me months to process it.
Have you been designing at all?
Of course. I mean, I haven’t stopped. I came up with a collection about two weeks after I won, and then I was sitting on that forever. It’s been hard, because a lot of people in the industry don’t want to invest time or energy or money because it’s like, “You were on a TV show.” But the flip side, it is like a résumé, and I’m not the most motivated person, where I’m out there at Marquis and Air every night being like, “Yeah, I’m Jay McCarroll, and here’s my card!” I wait for people to kind of fall into my lap, or to come across someone who knows someone, and that takes time. Putting a business together takes tons of time. I saw Heidi [Klum] at some kind of party, and she’s like, “Why aren’t you doing anything? Why aren’t you doing more?” and, “When I was young, I went everywhere, and I did everything!” And I was like, “Well, I’m trying to set up a business with distribution and manufacturing and production and licensing and marketing, and you just show up at a photo shoot and collect a check.”
And viewers of the show don’t understand that I can’t make 5,000 tote bags by myself and I can’t whip up a wedding dress in a day and a half like I did on the show. I mean, those things were stapled on, sewn on, barely hanging on. It would be easy for me to do a fashion show straightaway. I could put together an entire collection, but how does that get to the customer? I can’t mass-manufacture that stuff when I have no money. I can’t distribute that stuff when there’s only one of them. There are a lot of factors that go into a fashion business that a lot of people who watch the show, people who were executives on the show and came up with ideas for the show, don’t understand. I mean, that’s why so many fashion businesses fail, because there’s so much overhead, and getting investors and proving yourself and putting out collections on your own and seeing how your sales numbers are and how your financials are. There’s a lot to it.
There is a glossy façade to “Project Runway” work. “Here’s your challenge to design something inspired by the pork industry! Da da da!” And the music is on and it’s all glistening and the pigs are oinking, and the pigs are slaughtered, and you’re making beautiful leather jackets out of it, but the zipper doesn’t work and it smells like fucking kung pao chicken. It’s glossy, but the reality of it is, this stuff takes years, and it’s going to take me years to do this stuff. But hopefully people will remember my big Sasquatch face enough to buy the clothes.
I’m working on a line right now. It’s going to show in September. There’s interest, but there’s still no money and I need a glob of money to make this happen the way I want it to happen. I can put out 30 T-shirts, but I want more than that. And now “Project Runway” is being shown in Norway and China, and it’s like, I get to now think about international markets? That’s great. The best thing that came out of “Project Runway” is the fact that they sold my soul to this planet. They’re all potential customers, so I’m not offended by that.
So your target market is a mass market, not a couture kind of thing?
Right. I want complete accessibility — affordability, most importantly. Because that’s how I shop, that’s how my friends shop, that’s how my family shops. I don’t know anyone who wears Fendi fur, and those people are disgusting to me. I don’t want that to be my market. I want those happy girls who are putting themselves through college working two jobs. I want those people who are young professionals who are just trying to make ends meet and living their dream. I don’t want those fucking bitches whose husbands pay for them to wear my clothes. I don’t want that! I don’t care about red-carpet stuff. I don’t care about celebrity. We’re in a really important time in fashion right now with the disposability of clothes. The Old Navys of the world — I love Old Navy, I love Wal-Mart — they pump this shit out. I don’t know how it’s being made, and I buy it for nine dollars.
Has your view of the world gotten darker since you did “Project Runway”?
It’s actually gotten lighter. Because once you know these things, then you can make conscious changes in your world. Ideally, if I could use organic fibers and no fur and no leather and no slave labor and organic dyes in my line, and have it produced stateside, that’s my only goal. And I’ll work with organic cosmetic companies and no companies that do animal testing. The way so many companies work is so disgusting. But the more I learn about that, that’s more leverage that I have. I’m an animal lover, I’m an earth lover, I’m a recycler, I’m a composter. If I can bring beauty to the world in that way … I’m going to be the “Super Size Me” of the fashion world, basically.
Do you think you can still make your clothes affordable?
Oh, hell, yeah. People are great with consciousness. If it costs 10 dollars more — I don’t want to market to those people who don’t care. I have this one friend in particular who wants a fur coat, for no reason — it just looks pretty. And me being Sasquatch and not growing up as Brad Pitt, I’ve been really conscious of not being pretty in my life … For me, my friends and family will get the first [design] of everything, always. I’ll give it to fucking strangers. I’ll send you shit.
In that case, send me that skirt with the circles on it, and the scarf that goes with it. That’s what I want. Do you think anyone sabotaged their career by bombing on the show?
No, we’re all pretty much lost right now. It’ll take time. We’ll see in the next year or two people starting to reemerge again. We’ve all been just sitting on ideas and plans.
So, it sounds like you need a lot of time and money to do things your way.
Well, I need a lot of money, and $100,000 sounds great but I didn’t take the money. I basically opted to pursue other financial avenues.
What? Were there strings attached?
I can’t talk about it.
That sounds like a serious injustice!
It’s fine. It’s been a challenge to work around that obstacle, and if I can make it work beyond that, then I’ve really worked…
I could’ve been a complete douche bag right now, I could’ve been like, “Yeah, you know it’s really funny, it’s great to talk to you, Heather!” I’ve been media-trained! I’d probably say, “The best part of ‘Project Runway’ is all the parties! I mean, I’ve met so many great people!” That’s not interesting. That’s what Nick Lachey is for and that’s what Lindsay Lohan’s for. I’m not that person.
Do you think your thoughtfulness can get in your way?
No. I mean, there’s a game to be played, but we’re in really crazy times right now with Hollywood and the media. Fucking Giuliana DePandi on E! news: “Breaking news! We’re interrupting ‘Gastineau Girls’ to tell you about Nick and Jessica’s big breakup!” People are getting sick of that, and people are going to want to start to strip things down.
Free to be you and me
Here in America, we embrace the individual. We believe that it’s important to be yourself, to make your own choices, to honor your spirit. We want you to be you. Unless, of course, you’re a weirdo — in which case we want you to bind and gag your spirit and act just like everybody else.
For all of our talk of loving rebels and celebrating individualism, most of us learn very quickly that those who stray even a hair off the beaten path are harassed mercilessly until they start “acting normal” again. Still, the myth of individuality lives on, because that’s the American way. Even after years of being punished for behavior that’s even mildly original, we each fancy ourselves as special and unique when in fact we look and sound like everyone else, and our so-called originality is defined only by our dysfunctional tics and the particular blend of mass-produced items in our closets.
Sure, we love whimsical eccentrics and outspoken activists and nutty outsiders — in our romantic comedies and our suspense thrillers and our HBO comedy specials, not in our schools, churches and homes. Naturally you can be a total yo-yo if you’re a celebrity or you’re richer than God. Hell, you can even build a big playground and invite little boys to come play special, secret games with you. Otherwise? Keep it to yourself, freak.
Queer bait and switch
Of course, if you keep it to yourself too much, you might turn into one of those people of whom the neighbors say, “He keeps to himself,” meaning “He didn’t get my joke about the White Sox” or “Our dog seems afraid of him” or “The other day there was an odd smell, like burning hair, coming from his backyard…”
This highlights the essential lack of understanding we have of oddballs. Oddballs are threatening to us, because whenever they appear on TV, it always has something to do with lost little girls and teary-eyed parents tolerating Katie Couric’s thin-lipped smiles of faux sympathy. Yet plenty of the prominent figures in our culture spent years being labeled total freaks before they hit the big time. Somehow unusual traits and offbeat interests are seen as unsavory or even dangerous in the guy next door, but they’re portrayed as early signs of genius in, say, Brando or Hemingway.
Sundance’s “Iconoclasts” (premieres 10 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17) celebrates eccentricity and offers a closer look at some of the stubbornly original individuals who found a way to bring the full force of their personalities and their selves into their work. The series pairs up a visionary cultural figure with a celebrity who might help to capture the essential nature and talents of the individual in question. This is how we’re privy to Samuel Jackson playing golf with basketball legend Bill Russell, or designer Tom Ford watching artist Jeff Koons instruct an army of assistants on how to craft his latest sculpture.
The pace of the Samuel Jackson-Bill Russell pairing is a little slow, but after you get used to it, if you’re interested enough in Russell, you sort of fall into the rhythm of this unusual format, and you slowly get a sense of what makes Russell such a formidable presence. In particular, I loved the ’60s footage of reporters asking questions about race, with Russell responding with self-possessed frankness. Russell had a way of looking reporters straight in the eye and answering sincerely and directly, but with an edge that tells you he couldn’t have cared less what anyone thought of him.
Although Russell today seems far less somber and far more interested in cracking jokes and teasing Jackson, his lack of concern for appearances is still obvious. Even more impressive is his nonchalant attitude about his trophies and accomplishments. He’s been retired for years, but he’s obviously far too active and satisfied with his life to waste it droning on about the glory days.
Jeff Koons doesn’t have quite the presence that Russell does, but his segment with Tom Ford really drove home the strengths of the “Iconoclast” series, mostly because Ford does such a great job exploring Koons’ work and his motivations. Those who assume the fashion industry is populated by fluffy, superficial lightweights will snap to attention in the company of Ford, who despite his stylish made-for-celebrity-mags appearance, is not only charming but very sharp and great at asking tough questions without angering Koons.
Koons is known for throwing together pop images in dizzying, sometimes awful-looking, sometimes frivolous-seeming collages and paintings and sculptures. Having once held a day job as a commodities trader so that he wouldn’t sully his art by getting paid for it, Koons now basically runs an art factory, manned by assistants and artisans who help to pull together his creations. This isn’t unusual for a well-known artist, but it’s fascinating to see the process taking place. When you see teams of people putting the final touches on a dog-shaped blow-up float, like a kid’s toy, you wonder exactly what Ford asks: How can we tell if this stuff is sincere, or if it’s just bullshit?
Koons answers with an artist’s mix of sincerity and obfuscation, but the pair spend most of the program batting around ideas in ways that reflect their respect for and interest in each other. While that might sound like celebrity back-slapping, the conversation is much more evolved than it would be if Koons were being interviewed by a journalist.
Sundance’s “Iconoclasts” is refreshing because it affords us a look at visionaries who are worth knowing regardless of whether they’re in the news at the moment. Instead of focusing on sensational aspects of their stories, the series intelligently explores exactly those inspired, unconventional aspects of their personalities and their work that make them such fascinating subjects. Upcoming shows feature actress Renée Zellweger interviewing Christine Amanpour, Robert Redford interviewing Paul Newman, and chef Mario Batali interviewing REM frontman Michael Stipe. You heard me right: Batali interviewing Stipe. Hats off to the weirdo who dreamt up this series!
When you’re strange
The rise of cable TV and the Internet has certainly done its part to threaten a world of cheery normals and professionally trained conformists with an unpredictable gaggle of freaks. And yet, the manicured professionals still dominate the airwaves. Most of the people on TV, even on strange little cable networks, have the same plastered TV hair and speak in the same irritating, sing-songy tones. Even on reality shows, yuppies, professional types and those who enunciate like newscasters are strongly preferred, set up as “regular” people, while anyone with an accent is edited down to his country boy or redneck asides. Meanwhile, the genuine oddballs are few and far between, and those who speak frankly are seen as impolite or even downright malevolent.
And then there’s “Project Runway” (second season premieres 8 p.m. Dec. 7 on Bravo). I’ve been anxious to see it and finally caught the reunion episode from the first season last week. Having heard so many raves about this show, I worried that my expectations were too high. Not so, chicken cutlets! Not only is the show entertaining and smart and strange straight off the bat, but it’s immediately obvious what makes it different from other reality shows. First of all, they cast a bunch of genuinely odd, talented designers. These aren’t people who murmur clichés on cue, they’re unique individuals with things to say. Furthermore, not only are the competitors encouraged to joke around, it appears from what little I’ve seen that the best moments aren’t edited out for the sake of keeping the drama storyline of the week afloat. Not that there’s no drama — with such a reckless group of wine-swilling goofballs involved, how couldn’t there be? But the footage we see of the designers feels natural, not staged, and the editing is really sly and fun. Best of all, the challenges aren’t those goony manufactured “Apprentice”-style sponsored events; they’re provocative design challenges that seem to have been created by thoughtful design teachers, not TV producers.
Of course, all that could change with season 2, which has lined up a handful of sponsors, thanks to the popularity of the first season. Hopefully, though, the essential spirit of “Project Runway,” with its clear love of imagination, creativity, talent and oddballs who behave strangely whether or not the camera is rolling, will shine through. Just two weeks until the fur (and the silk organza) starts to fly!
Disrespect intended
Speaking of fur flying, Aaron McGruder’s “The Boondocks” is finally airing on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” (premieres at 11 p.m. on Sunday), and Huey is about as pissed off to be living with a bunch of white folks in the Chicago suburbs as you might imagine. He’s also certain that Ronald Reagan is the devil, and that the government lied about 9/11.
Sounds like a reasonable enough kid to me — and, infuriatingly enough, the locals seem to agree. Instead of being appalled at his outspoken remarks and provocative antics, the white people around him coo and compliment him on how “articulate” he is. Of course, McGruder’s real-life antics didn’t go over nearly as well when he goaded the crowd at an anniversary gala for the Nation last year by mentioning that he voted for Nader, to which Nation columnist Eric Alterman famously heckled “Thanks for Bush!” McGruder told the New Yorker, “These are the big, rich white leftists who are going to carry the fight to George Bush, and the best they can do is blame Nader?”
McGruder is exactly the sort of angry outsider who’s custom-made to cause a stir among polite society’s rabble-rousers — you know, the sorts that prefer to effect change and engage in heated debates over roasted duck, smoothly sidestepping any hurt feelings or awkward silences. Getting angry and condescending to a crowd that paid good money to be there is just plain unseemly, forget that your main point — that back-slapping, self-congratulatory elites make your stomach turn — is well worth making, particularly to a crowd of back-slapping self-congratulatory elites.
You have to admire McGruder’s courage, particularly given the immense pressure to smile and act humble in such a setting. To honor McGruder for what he does, which is write a provocative cartoon about racism and one black kid’s anger at white people, and then balk when he makes provocative, angry remarks, is hilariously petty. But then, just as we love our nutty outsiders as long as they’re in romantic comedies and not in our living rooms, so too do we love our angry black men, as long as they don’t say anything that will make the vichyssoise go down the wrong way.
The first episode of “The Boondocks,” in which Huey, his little brother, and his grandfather are invited to an all-white garden party, seems to mirror McGruder’s memorable night on the podium. Of course, Huey’s angry outbursts to the guests would never even appear on TV, except that Huey is a kid and this is a cartoon and all of this is just for laughs, right? Except that there aren’t really a lot of jokes here, just characters with strong ideas and stubborn notions facing off against each other. In truth, the show feels like an odd fit for “Adult Swim,” which traffics in irony-laced goofiness and pop cultural non sequiturs and carefully avoids anything heavy or even slightly dramatic or remotely linear.
But what makes “The Boondocks” really odd and unusual to watch also makes it hard not to watch — you want to know what McGruder’s going to try to address, and how much leeway he’ll get from the powers that be at Cartoon Network. After two episodes, “The Boondocks” shows promise, defies categorization and, basically, could either evolve into a great show or become repetitive really fast. It’s way too soon to tell, but given the daunting topics McGruder wants to tackle, it’s tough not to cheer him on.
Dream on, white girls
And then there’s “Desperate Housewives,” a show that’s tough not to hate despite its strengths. The problem is that the essential theme of the show, the stultifying conformity of the upper-middle-class suburbs and the slow death afforded to the women in a traditional family structure, is undercut by skin-deep plots, giggling, gun play, and Danny Elfman’s endlessly plinking soundtrack. “See folks, it’s all a joke!” his tedious little twinkly keys remind us, like an ice cream truck that keeps circling the block over and over but never stops long enough for us to gorge ourselves on Nutty Buddies.
Felicity Huffman remains the highlight of the show — which isn’t saying much, given Teri Hatcher’s cornball tittering and stumbling, and Eva Longoria’s pouting. To be fair, Huffman and Marcia Cross are given more interesting stories because their circumstances are closer to the real problems of real women. Still, how many times can chaos erupt while Lynette is rushing out the door?
The trouble is that no matter how clearly we recognize the ills of the suburbs, they’re incredibly difficult to portray. The soccer moms and control freaks and neighborhood gossips are never captured accurately enough — they’re reduced to mean remarks and hard stares at some badly staged PTA meeting. Even on a really smart show like “Weeds,” the horrors of suburbanites’ passive-aggressive, cheery manipulations are painted in far too broad strokes to express their exquisitely awful subtleties. Even shows like “Veronica Mars,” “My So-Called Life,” “Freaks and Geeks,” and “Buffy” never quite nail the complexities and the deeply disturbing habits of middle-class Americans. You can get a laugh from the cleverness and the zombie-like moms and absent dads, but there’s something about the limiting structure of an hour-long drama that renders it all a little too neat and cute and superficial. We need something with depth that’s still scathing and funny, maybe a collaboration between Alan Ball, Winnie Holzman and Joss Whedon…
Weirdo is as weirdo does
Ah, but sadly, we can’t change the world, chickens. All we can do is program our TiVos and cut our lawns to match the length of our neighbors’ lawns. True originality and purity of self-expression are afforded only to those with the time and energy to make a clear, loud, unmistakable point in their words and deeds, plus it typically involves styling one’s hair in a manner that doesn’t complement the shape of one’s face. Who has the time and energy to be an outsider these days? Who has the constant drive to deliver a message about themselves and their views everywhere they go? Most of us can’t even work up the energy to put a “Our President Is A Moron” sticker on our luxury SUVs. I’m not saying we should feel satisfied just with voting, filling our journals with bad poetry, and wearing a really weird pair of shoes occasionally. I’m just saying most of us have to be satisfied with keeping our outsider status on the inside — not because we’re chicken, chickens, but because we’re friggin’ old.
You hear that, kids? Better fuck shit up while you can, because before you know it, you’re going to be far too tired and lame to even make a run for gasoline and matches at the local Wal-Mart. Anyway, I’d say more, but it’s already way past my naptime.
Next week: Like Caesar himself, HBO’s “Rome” rises triumphantly from its uncertain beginnings, buoyed by the cheering sight of outsiders’ heads on stakes.
“Project Runway,” now past the midpoint of its 10-week run on Bravo, bills itself as “the first ever reality series focusing on fashion designers.” The claim feels like an oxymoron compounded, yoking “first” with “reality series” and “reality” with “fashion,” and like many bids for originality, this one is symptomatic of an identity crisis.
The series’ title is a hand-me-down from “Project Greenlight,” one of Bravo’s new acquisitions, and the plot — in which 12 aspiring designers and 12 winsome models compete to gain a foothold in a treacherous industry — borrows compulsively from every other reality production, from “American Idol” and “Survivor” to the televised galas of Victoria’s Secret. At one point, the confusion seems to persuade cast members that they have stumbled onto the set of “The Apprentice.” But beneath the wool of its knockoff premise, “Project Runway” reveals the lace and the underwire of a singular vision: a sleek, artful addition to the overstuffed reality lineup, as sweet and seductive as the girl next door.
Set primarily in the workaday basements of Parsons School of Design, “Runway” takes viewers inside the art of couture, where the goal is as much to be seen as worn. Hemmed in by merciless deadlines, tight budgets, fraying nerves and occasionally loopy project specifications, the designers manqué vie for a chance to hawk their wares on the bigger stage of New York’s Fall Fashion Week 2005. The winner also earns an apprenticeship in Banana Republic’s design studio, as well as the tidy sum of $100,000, which can feather a lot of boas. On its face, a series about dressmaking promises to have all the demographic flexibility of an Ortho Evra commercial, but there’s something irresistible about talented people tragically invested in what they do. Add in the presence of “Runway’s” coltish models, and this show might stir attentions in the reddest of red states.
Each episode starts with the designers assembled before an unadorned and paparazzi-free runway, where host and executive producer Heidi Klum discloses the week’s design challenge in her pert Teutonic accent, prompting murmurs of dismay among the gallery. From backstage, the models trot out in identical black-pearl silk negligees, all knees and bare shoulders, and the designers choose them one by one like, well, vegetables.
The models are pedigreed, attached to some of New York’s poshest agencies, but they also have a stake in “Runway’s” proceedings. As the number of designers inevitably shrinks each week, so too does the number of models, and the last one standing wins a photo spread in Elle. The two-way competition gives these inaccessible girls an incentive to loosen up, playing to designer and camera alike; as an added bonus, it allows each episode to begin with a weepy, model-limbed goodbye, reminding viewers of the ultimate fragility of this photogenic ecosystem.
After a round of foraging in some of Manhattan’s tucked-away fabric warehouses, vintage clothing stores and, in one case, even a supermarket, the designers retreat to the drawing tables at Parsons where they yelp and bicker their way through the creative process. Unlike the bigger network productions, “Runway” preserves a documentary feel, and never quite relinquishes a blue-collar ethos despite the rampant stylishness (prepare for occasional belching). The overcaffeinated camerawork keeps the action from stagnating, and the show buzzes along, vibrant and nervy, from segment to segment.
“Runway” answers an eternal question: Yes, designers do stow pins in their mouths, bandolier-style, before skewering an uncomplaining mannequin. They dip textiles, artificial roses and, often, themselves in ubiquitous dyes. They wield fabric shears and wheel razors (like pizza cutters) at their design stations, suspect sabotage when pattern pieces go missing, cauterize stray threads with cigarette lighters and worry their garments with fussy fingers and a skeptical eye (the other fixed squarely on the clock).
Parsons fashion director Tim Gunn checks in on the designers’ progress, dispensing choice words of charity and abuse for the fledgling garments, but order rarely prevails. A backroom, stocked with temperamental Singer sewing machines, yields a surprising amount of gore. One designer breaks off a needle in her finger, and we get a glimpse of the offending metal embedded in flesh before the others rush to her aid, extracting the shard with a tweezers. It’s a minor theme reprised elsewhere in the action: After a hard day’s work the competitors set out on a drunken escapade, and an athletic cast member, in a fit of bravado, scales a New York scaffolding to perform a high-bar routine. He cracks his head against the pavement on the dismount, which requires two scalp staples from the emergency room. No one asks if there’s a design lesson here, but these bloody vignettes add a layer of convenient drama within the more rarefied framework of the competition.
As plot devices, the challenges are well crafted, constantly realigning the personal and sartorial dynamics and periodically whisking the cast off to the snooty citadels of the fashion establishment. But they’re a bit of a mess in principle. You can tell the real challenge is on the producers to engineer plausible tests of a chronically ambiguous skill set, to distinguish genuine vision from mere dressmaking and fakery. In search of audience approval, the show sidesteps matters of craftsmanship in favor of common-denominator issues like who works well with others, or who can complete a passable design with only the barest essentials of time and material.
Some projects seem destined for failure: Asked to draw inspiration from the abstraction “jealousy,” one designer carves a gown in monstrous green, festooned with stuffed-hose tumors, to symbolize this cancer of the character. But “Runway’s” greatest surprise is that each designer’s identity has a way of emerging, with endearing clarity, from the pleats and cuffs of their impossible tasks.
Collectively, “Runway’s” ensemble reveals an array of compromised solutions to the highly public problem of self-invention. Against Klum’s 6 feet of purest sunshine, all of the contestants seem outclassed, but if these self-portraits suffer at all on-screen, it’s from an excess of typecasting. Kara Saun, a self-confessed military brat, might be the most grounded of the competitors, possessing an easygoing confidence, the relative worldliness of her 37 years and an inarguable talent, perfectly reflected in her creations. Charged to style a look for the year 2055, using only vintage materials, Saun produces a sexy, militant and convincingly futuristic topcoat, overlaid with a leather vest qua bodice and feminine epaulets in hypnotic earth tones, and underwritten by boots, bared thighs and cream satin — all topped off with a martial, face-shielding muffler. The whole outfit feels effortless and radiates an equally compelling biography of its maker.
Passing through the step stages of the other competitors — men and women with unequal portions of skill and naked ambition — at the other end of the spectrum is Austin Scarlett. A 23-year-old costume designer by trade, he threatens to skew the audience in the direction of countercultural glam: a wispy figure, dusted in cosmetics, with theatrical blond hair. At times, the competition brings out the worst in Scarlett, leading him to oversell his personality and considerable stylishness; in crisis moments, he can vanish behind a perfumed cloud of affectations, enunciating with an excess of simper and gasp. And excepting his visionary first entry, a dress in woven corn husks that’s like a sunburst, his designs too sometimes scramble beyond the pale of ordinary good taste as his creations gush with floral ruffles and retro-fluffiness.
That we can witness a transformation, from likable decency to gross parody, in a person this overproduced is a triumph of the show’s boundary-testing vision. In one of “Runway’s” sweet throwaway moments, filmed after hours when the competitors bunk down in their shared living quarters, Scarlett faces off with Rob Plotkin, a buff charmer with enough charisma to make organza seem masculine, each of them caked in a cucumber-y facial mask. They improvise a dumb-show, mirroring each other’s movements, as if they were identical twins. A tremor of genuine human contact underlies the clowning, capturing succinctly our experience of the show: Despite the dolled-up circumstances, we find ourselves bonded to the cast.
More striking is the fact that “Runway’s” producers are fully in charge of every nuance of these character sketches. They indulge in many of the new-verité’s clichés. Eager to expose hypocrisy, they juxtapose moments of the action with offstage backbiting from the interview footage. With the commercial sophistication of an infomercial, they allow product placement and dramatic expedience to masquerade as the cultivation of talent. (The first designer to fall on “Runway” suffers less from any deficiency in skill than from a pathological inability to relax in front of the camera.)
The most obvious of “Runway’s” pleasures is its calculated sex appeal. In preparation for the runway show, where the weakest design will be exposed and its designer sent to the curb, the models gather in the makeup room to have their hair torqued and faces etched before donning something less comfortable. This cosmetic ruckus also involves a rapid sequence of last-minute design alterations, in which the young women check the security of their intimates, hefting breasts and inspecting rear ends with professional candor.
But raw feminine pulchritude, however precious, hardly qualifies as groundbreaking. “Runway,” to its credit, goes further, treating us to lurid doses of reality here on fantasy’s factory floor. In the swimsuit challenge, a designer asks model Erin, an impossibly thin beauty, if she’s ever worn a bikini so undersized: Erin answers, speechlessly, “Uhn-uhn.” Likewise, when another model, cherubic Martinique, asks for more coverage from an ill-constructed thong, we pass in an instant beyond some velvet threshold of anatomical intimacy.
It’s less about voyeurism, I think, than it is a welcome reminder that these women, however nebulously glamorous they aspire to be, are beings of ordinary flesh and bone. We see the red scrapes appear on Julia’s skin as she submits patiently (and toplessly) to the bondage rituals of Jay McCarroll’s bikini, and we hear Olga’s pained, unflattering broken English as she complains of the allover itching of Kevin Johnn’s wedding dress. After decades of carping about the body images these women promote, it’s undeniably refreshing that “Runway” opts to portray them as they are, amid the everyday trials, intimate discomforts and inevitable humanity of their industry.
The runway show itself is an artful trompe l’oeil, as the labored camerawork and très chic soundtrack (not to mention the eternity-parsing gazes of the models) allow us to forget that this performance is playing to an empty house: an altogether more satisfying arrangement than the overdone staging and creepy theatricality of, say, “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search.” A panel of industry heavyweights stands by — designer Michael Kors and Elle magazine’s Nina Garcia are regulars, cast in the roles of “American Idol” judges Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul — preparing to grill the designers about their clothes, and the panel’s commercial heft, like Klum’s star power, lends an air of legitimacy to the fretting of the novices. As a result of the judges’ deliberations, the challenge winner receives an exemption, à la “The Apprentice,” and the task falls to Klum to pronounce the loser definitively “out,” a sexy and brutal umlaut hanging over the “u.”
This snapshot of the industry’s critical vocabulary leaves us worrying that fashion is as empty-headed as we sometimes fear. The adjective “froufrou” occurs with distressing regularity. For all the talk about “design philosophies” on the show, nothing much of substance survives the final edit. An attractive design is termed, in high praise, “completely complete,” and the designers spout similar vagaries to explain their visions. One gushes over his swimsuit look, “I swathed her in gossamer and winds and rains and the ocean …” trailing off into the earthly delights of salesmanship. The costume began as four yards of stretch fabric.
If the critical apparatus buckles under an excess of style and a dearth of sense, fashion is no worse off than the other fine arts, just more effete in its miscues. On some level, perhaps “dowdy” is a revelatory verdict after all. But “Runway” only grazes what might have been an interesting story — to shine a light on the aesthetic nuts and cultural bolts of fashion design, unencumbered by any political agenda. That’s not the tale this show has to tell, and the competition might be less fun if it were. Instead, we’re left, like the designers, to wrangle with the opacity of the critiques.
Still, we can’t help raising an eyebrow when the question of influence makes a cameo appearance during the judging; one contestant is ousted for copying a Missoni design, while another is exalted for a “Gucci-esque” vision. The contradictory standards are less remarkable than the bigger irony — that the judges themselves cast their verdicts within a framework of recycled television ideas. “Runway” is an earnest sweet-nothing built from the remaindered ends of other people’s wardrobes — or series. As the designers get scalded by the notion of artistic originality, we’re invited to measure the show — with its skilled cut-and-pasting of more evanescent materials — by the same criteria in the meta-design challenge of reality television. If the judges are oblivious, the producers might have an inkling that something rare arises from this crosshatching of matter and medium. Self-consciousness might be the last thing reality television needs. But if the genre won’t die, it might as well evolve.
As the final episode approaches, the cast thins out, an odds-on favorite emerges, styles wilt and the show’s human substance gains greater depth. It’s anyone’s guess if a brand name awaits the victor beyond the show’s final credits, but another kind of afterlife is guaranteed: “Runway’s” entire season, true to Bravo’s form, will air again in mid-February. The encore, in this case, is well deserved. “Project Runway” makes reality television feel like a cottage industry again. Fashion, it seems, is back in style.
