Project Runway Episode 1 Recap

Perez Hilton speculates that Bravo purposely didn’t market season five as a big F You to those responsible for the series’ jump to Lifetime – and Los Angeles – for season six. But I still managed to hear about it, find out that they moved it to 8 p.m. Wednesdays (much better for an early-to-bed gal such as myself) and in spite of last night’s car trauma, make it home for the start of the episode.

Having not had the impending season shoved down my throat for the past X number of weeks, I knew nothing going in about any of the contestants. Not a one. And as they were introduced to us, I didn’t immediately like any of them. The same thing happened to me last season and I ended up positively falling in love with Chris March, but there was no Santino (perhaps my favorite all-time favorite PR contestant), no Daniel Vosovic, no Michael Knight. In fact, I immediately disliked almost everyone, especially:

Blayne. Oh my God. I was so hoping that he would be kicked off last night, but alas, he’s sticking around. Remember how Christian Siriano said “that’s fierce” all the time, and how much it irritated people? Blayne says things are “_____licious” a hundred times more. Also, his model looked like she was wearing a diaper.

Stella. Holy scary, Batman. And did she really expect the judges to be impressed with her garbage bag dress? Didn't we already see that on Tilda Swinton at the Oscars?

And what is up with the guy with a blue Mohawk who calls himself Suede?

Anyway, last night they recreated the first ever Project Runway challenge, where the contestants had to create an outfit using only materials purchased from a Gristedes grocery store. And they brought Austin Scarlett - first ever PR challenge winner with a dress made entirely of corn husks - back as a guest judge! Yay Austin. He is fabulous.

I felt most of the designs were uninspired and uncreative - checkered tablecloth dress? Really? Shower curtain rain jacket? Groundbreaking. By the end of the episode I had kind of fallen in like with Daniel and his blue plastic cup dress, and I was disappointed that Kelli - who reminds me of last season's Kit, but annoying - won, even though I liked the bottom part of her dress.

I’m still not entirely hooked on this season, which makes me a little sad. Perhaps what's really sad is that I have invested so much in a television show over the past four seasons. But I didn’t see anything last night that really impressed me, whereas I had fallen in love with Santino by the end of episode one of season two, Uli, Michael and Kayne in season three and Rami, Chris and Christian in season four. Hopefully as the dead weight gets eliminated (please let that dead weight be Stella and Blayne, stat) this season’s contestants will start to grow on me as well.