For the record, here’s how they stack up.

What The Fashion Show does right:

• Fern Mallis - As a judge, Fern is a worthy successor to Michael Kors and Nina Garcia. What I like about her is that she gives really intelligent criticism, but mostly eschews the catty Kors-isms. She’s not interested in being cute, she’s just interested in good design. Also, her name is Fern.
• Not paying any mind to the models or what they think.
• Usually interesting, usually brief Quickfire-esque competitions to start off the episode.

On the fence:

• Isaac Mizrahi - I have a tolerate/hate relationship with Isaac Mizrahi. While I respect his feedback and fashion expertise, his self-involvement is pretty clear from the get-go. Also, he really does seem to relish dishing out criticism. And, a la Tom effing Colicchio from Top Chef, he does that thing where he acts morally offended when
• Uselessly carting out Laura from Harper’s Bazaar so that they can say “Harper’s Bazaar” a few hundred times every episode.

What it does wrong:

• While I don’t expect them to necessarily have Tim Gunn himself, I think having a good-natured mentor does a lot for the show. The fact that Isaac and Kelly, the people who are going to be judging in the end, get to go around and critique the outfits when the designers are pretty much at the point of no return seems useless.
• Kelly Rowland

A word about Kelly Rowland.

I was rooting for Kelly to succeed on the show from the very beginning. I guess there’s something about my love of the underdog that made me want to be surprised at how much insight she would have. After all, what does the B-list Beyonce have to say about fashion?

Turns out, nothing.

Kelly basically follows Isaac around, offers obvious opinions and, during judging, recites the ridiculous comments made by the audience during the fashion show. The only time she has ever really made an intelligent comment was on last week’s episode and the comment was clearly dubbed in in post-production. I think I turned the corner on Kelly in the episode where Angel got kicked off for design a bad “b-girl” outfit (which, as I found out, just means hip hop style). After weeks of just sitting around and taking up space, Kelly called the outfit insulting and got into a major huff for Angel’s obvious inexperience with this particular style.

Basically, Kelly has no room for getting mad at anybody’s perceived ignorance. When her own existence on the show is barely justified (they half-assed it during the first episode by saying she likes to go to fashion shows in her spare time), it certainly takes some balls to call someone out on not knowing what they’re talking about. So, after that episode, I gave up on rooting for her to succeed and have begun actively wishing she’d just shut up and let Isaac and Fern talk.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system…

If you haven’t been into The Fashion Show, now might be a good time to jump in if you’re so inclined. All of the remaining contestants could conceivably win (hairspray queen Haven got kicked off last Thursday, the last contestant who clearly had no shot of winning).

Here’s a round-up of who’s left:

• Merlin - Known for dressing like a gay superhero and having to be subtitled most of the time due to his thick Honduran accent, Merlin likes loud colors and dressing people like futuristic drag queens. He has moments of Draconian villainy, but has been surprisingly quiet most of the time.
• Reco - Reco is, by far, the most irritating contestant — dramatic, cocky and constantly picking fights with the other contestants. Frustratingly, he has the sewing and design chops to back up his cockiness and is one of the favorites to win the season.
• Daniella - At the bafflingly young age of 22, Daniella tends to win every competition. She’s no Christian Siriano in terms of antics, but if she were slightly more mature she’d be kicking even more ass.
• Anna - Anna is clearly the most mature and likable contestant. She likes her pleats.
• James-Paul - James-Paul is a bit more avant guard than the rest. He’s also probably the most lovable contestant, with his squeaky voice and dork chic glasses.
• Johnny R. - Johnny R. (the R. is necessary to distinguish him from the hot-ish Johnny that was eliminated in the first episode) tends to give off the impression that he doesn’t care about the competition. He also stole Amy Winehouse’s hairdo.

The Fashion Show’s on Bravo tonight.

I’m guessing they’re hoping Project Runway will do for their station what the show did for Bravo — that is, completely transform and revitalize the network’s audience. So the new commercial tries to bring more dudes into the fold — specifically straight ones.

It’s a noble aim, but I can’t imagine middle-aged men in the locker room after racquetball arguing over who is the superior draper.

Okay, now I don’t watch Gossip Girl OR listen to Cobra Starship, so the analysis is all up to you. Is this fun and self-aware, or are they tools and poseurs?

Things to consider:

*The white (lensless?) glasses.
*All of Mr. Starship’s incessant pointing.
*Ms. Starship’s bionic silver eye.
*Ms. Meester’s vocal chops that don’t seem to be auto-tuned…until the end.
*The melody’s resemblance to Sean Kingston’s “Fire Burning on the Dance Floor” at the chorus.
*The fact that Kara DioGuardi had to help make a song that sounds like a Sean Kingston song.
*Rap breakdown.

Verdict?

On Saturday night, I was one of very few people to enjoy a concert by Eagle and Talon — an LA band composed of multi-instrumentalists Kim and Alice Talon (although Kim tends to focus on singing and guitar and Alice focuses on her drums). The band frequently garners Sleater-Kinney references because of their bratty vocal exchanges and distorted guitars that are sometimes chugging, sometimes sinewy.

I met Kim after the show and she was very sweet. As evidence of how nice she is, she is offering her band’s debut album, Thracian, for free until July 1 via the Eagle and Talon Web site.  So, go there now and download it.

Here’s the video for the best song on the album — also the Sleater-Kinney-est.  It’s called Ice Life.

If you’d really like to see a TV tie-in, you can see the band perform on 90210 (complete with Tori Spelling) here.

Phoenix plays lively dance-pop with somewhat nonsensical lyrics. For one, I find them to be a lot of fun. And so does Jimmy Kimmel (or at least his music booker) because they played on his show last night.

Here they are playing Lisztomania.  The official video is after the jump.

Highly recommended for hipster workout music.

This week, Sandie interviewed Rutina Wesley who plays Tara on HBO’s True Blood. (Daemon’s TV)

Scooter pays tribute to Michael Jackson. (Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green)

Other than So You Think You Can Dance, Vance didn’t have much time to watch TV last week because he was out in the park watching Twelfth Night starring Anne Hathaway, Raul Esparza (Pushing Daisies), Audra McDonald (Private Practice), Hamish Linklater (New/Old Christine) and more. (Tapeworthy)

This week, Jace offered an elegy for ABC’s canceled The Unusuals and offered advance reviews of FOX’s Virtuality and the first four episodes of HBO’s Hung. (Televisionary)

After this week’s episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Sara has the irresistible urge to become BFFs with Kathy and Paula Deen. (TiFaux)

Eric is so glad that Lafayette is back for season two of True Blood and even happier to find out how he gets out of imprisonment this week. (TV Fanatic)

This week, the TV Addict took a closer at the CW’s unexpected midseason treat, LIFE UNEXPECTED (The TV Addict)

The trailer, below, is awful — mostly because of the disengaged English woman reciting a book report on the plot of the movie. But the story goes that Earth is uninhabitable and this crew of sexy astronauts has to find a new home for us.

Also, here’s a weird clip of a white girl singing a Japanese rock song.  I’m not sure how this is involved with the plot, but apparently it is.

It’s at 8, if you want to set the DVR.

Paula gets new diamonds whenever she gets new hair, I think.

During her visit, Kathy hit on Paula’s single son, Bobby (I prefer Jamie, but he’s married), and Team Griffin attempted to cook something. And there was a big, boozy, Walker-style dinner, complete with Kathy commenting that Paula’s gay assistant, Brandon, was turning into a Jacqueline Susann novel. Which was awesome. But my favorite part was when Paula was tasting the monstrosities Team Griffin put together in her palatial kitchen, and confided that she knows “girls that sometimes, they don’t always swallow their food while they’re filming,” but that Paula always swallows her food. And I KNOW she is talking about Giada! That skinny twit does not eat her food. (But I do. It’s pretty good.)

I am loving where Kathy is going with all the splendid divas this season. I hope Cher is next. And here’s a fun piece of trivia for you to impress your friends: Paula Deen and Susan Sarandon are the same age. Susan is actually a few months older. Yep. Also, Amy Adams is older than Ryan Reynolds. I find that surprising.

Here's a picture of Ryan Kwanten without a shirt.

Since its premiere, there’s been a lot of speculation as to whether or not the series is an elaborate allegory about gay rights.

Charlaine Harris, who write the Sookie Stackhouse books, says she intended the story to play out that way. Meanwhile, Alan Ball dismisses the idea. There’s an interesting

The New York Post writes:

Author Charlaine Harris — who wrote the best-selling Sookie Stackhouse mystery novels that the TV show is based on — hoped fans would pick up on the link between vampire rights and gay rights when she published the first book in 2001.

“When I began framing how I was going to represent the vampires, it suddenly occurred to me that it would be interesting if they were a minority that was trying to get equal rights,” Harris says.

“It just seemed to fit with what was happening in the world right then.”

But, the creator of the TV series, Alan Ball, doesn’t see it the same way. “To look at these vampires on the show as metaphors for gays and lesbians is so simple and so easy, that it’s kind of lazy,” Ball told a group of reporters in early June.

“If you get really serious about it, well, then the show could be seen to be very homophobic because vampires are dangerous: They kill, they’re amoral.”

True, Alan — it would be really easy to make that comparison. And, admittedly, there definitely isn’t a one-to-one relationship between the vamps and the gays.

But at the same time, come on. You’ve got an evangelical uprising against this population. You’ve got a “God Hates Fangs” sign in the opening credits.  You used the phrase “to come out of the coffin.” You have to admit, that you’re at least inviting a few comparisons.  If you really wanted to avoid it, you could have tried a bit harder to disguise it.