Getting Warily Excited for Project Runway's Big Return

Sixth time's the charm?

After a year of lawsuits and misery and whining, Project Runway is finally returning to the airwaves, tomorrow at 10pm. And it's all different.

First, and biggest, it's on Lifetime, instead of Bravo. Which means that in the inevitable Project Runway battle between its two core fan bases--ladies and gays--the ladies have resoundingly won. Also different: It's in LA! Which means that, well, that Heidi Klum and Heidi Klum alone has won. Apparently she demanded that the fashion design competition series film its sixth season in Los Angeles so she could be closer to her Seal and their pups.

So those are two big changes, changes that I'm not convinced won't irrevocably destroy the series, like so much Mood fabric cut too soon. The show is so New York, what with the fashion industry being kinda all here and helper mensch Tim Gunn knowing the city like the back of his perfectly moisturized hand. And, really, what the hell is in LA? Strip malls and strippers. Fried-out, blissed-out, avocado-eating weirdos who wouldn't know fashion if it started to gnaw on their alarmingly tan elbows. It just can't work. There's no way it can.

And the whole Lifetime thing is... yeesh. Aesthetically and ideologically, Lifetime and Bravo are just such different networks. Lifetime is for suburban ladymoms and hungover college students. Bravo is for gay men who think they're sleek and expensive and the women who lovingly hag them. Those demographics may sound like they overlap, but trust me: They do not! They are very different. Will Project Runway suffer because of this change? It would be hard to think not.

Really, the show had already started to fade and fray. The last season was just so... blah. The contestants were so aware--too aware--of being on the show, of how the formula works. Nothing felt organic. That orange peanut creature Blaine or whatever with his packaged, lame catchphrases? Decidedly not girlicious. And who even won? It was that bewigged muppet girl from Oregon, wasn't it? Mehhhh. I am bored just thinking about it. Project Runway should have ended after Christian Siriano won. No one will ever best that little Salacious Crumb (he is also Mowgli from The Jungle Book). Ever. Everything after is just a study in futility.

But? With all of these negatives aside, all of this hand-wringing and LA bashing pushed into the shadows, I must say... I'm actually fairly excited for the new season. If only because it used to be such a favorite show. And it's been gone for so long, but now it's back. Now it's back and we can all watch with glassy-eyed glee as people on a reality show actually make things. They'll actually employ skill, smarts, and talent to get something done and to produce a product. There are very few reality shows that can make that claim these days.

Sure maybe Lifetime will dull it down. Sure the show's successful creative team, the Magical Elves, is no longer with the series. Sure LA is a poor and withered stand-in for gleaming, dirty old New York. But let's try to forget all that. It's still a fun show, by virtue of its concept. It's still creative. Tim Gunn is still a lovable old doll of a man. It's Project Runway for God's sake! They'll, you know, make it work.

Won't they?