This whole Project Runway season is going to be cloaked in tension, I think. The show itself will probably be relatively unaffected but, as we’ve been mentioning lately, it’s been super-awk the past few weeks as Bravo has refused to divulge details about the show or show any clips.
It’s all based on the show’s impending move to Lifetime. Now, I feel like Bravo and the producers of Project Runway have a relationship not unlike a plotline I would see in a movie I would watch with my grandmother. The plotline of the movie involves a young ethnic adult of some sort (if I’m watching it with my grandmother, it’d be a conservative Jewish household) who develops a relationship with some young goyishe person in a far-off land. And now that the young adult wants to move away, the angry, elderly parent from the old country merely says “Son! I have no son!”
Moving on.
Point is, the folks at Jossip created a post detailing how they’ve messed with the series. Take a look and take note of their bitterness.
• They aren’t promoting it to critics. Screeners of the show’s first few episodes, which have always gone out to reviewers ahead of time for advance write ups, were not distributed this year. That means there’s almost nothing for television writers to preview, reducing what’s usually blanket coverage of the show to critics sniping about not being able to review the show.
• An unscientific survey of Bravo’s programming turns up what feels like a suspiciously minuscule amount of on-air plugging for the new season. Generally, a network will promote the crap out of one of its hit shows during commercial breaks in the weeks leading up to its premiere in an effort to generate buzz and ratings. Not this time. That Runway is even on Bravo’s dial this season seems like an afterthought.
• Tim Gunn has gone on record saying he’s not thrilled with the direction the show is going. If you don’t have the gays on board, you don’t have any standing.
• Bravo refused to reveal much, if anything, about its fifth and last season ahead of time. The line up of contestants, usually made available weeks ahead of the premiere, debuted on BravoTV.com only today.
• What else debuted on Bravo’s website today? Round-ups of every single future episode, including what the challenge will be and which celebrity guest will be appearing. Even in the finale. This is a profoundly uncharacteristic move for Bravo. Previously, the details of each episode were held as close to Bravo’s vest as a state secret would be to the CIA; the following week’s celebrity judge would be the subject of endless speculation, gossip column plants, and on-air promo spots that cut away just before the identity was revealed. This is a complete about-face for Bravo’s publicity plan and flies in the face of marketing logic. The icing on the cake? When you visit the episode recap page (spoiler alert!), the first synopsis, at the top of the page, is of the season’s last episode, not the first. (To be sure, the recaps do not tell you which contestant is voted off. But they might as well.)
In other news, if you want a bit of breakdown of the cast, read Reality Blurred’s round-up.
