Season 3

At last, something to destroy the doldrums of the steamiest July in memory -- some good TV in the guise of Project Runway, season trois. There was two hours worth of content last night, and a shitload of material to process. I never absorb contents of a reality season-opener; it takes me a good three eps to get a handle on my heroes and villains. I liked the screening process, but was taken aback by how many prospective contestants offered "building a brand" as their reason for entering. Building a brand? Seriously? What about a slickly earnest I design because I have to, or else I'd wither away into a pile of dry autumn leaves and blow away? How about some degree of design-school enthusiasm untainted by marketspeak? Whatever...

And for all Heidi and Nina Garcia's trumpeting about how this is "far and away the best group of designers ever," it seems hard to believe considering how weak some of the first task results were. Seems to me that the first expellee, Stacy Estrella, was an easy mark to go, what with her dot-com reasoning for getting into design. Also, the loser-up Vincent Libretti (he of that dumb fucking bucket-hat) seems destined to get dumped early, if for no other reason than his terminal indecision and complete inability to discern "fugly" as a concept. In addition, I don't see Hotlanta's own Michael Knight lasting too long. His portfolio looked so weak it had seven days.

The two designers who sound especially scabrous are Malan Breton and Laura Bennett (top right). If Malan mentions he was born in Taiwan one more time, I hope that Tim Gunn commands him to walk across the river into Brooklyn and fetch a slice of Junior's cheesecake, a la Diddy. Laura, however, is a different case -- her fucking audition tape screamed "UNFIT MOTHER." She looks like one of those women who hits 40 and refuses to acknowledge that she's got five kids, either behaviorally or sartorially. Seriously, her makeup and clothing suggest that she just drove Doc Brown's Delorean out of a Robert Palmer video.

In addition, the task results were mostly underwhelming. Still, I can't wait for next week for more personality to emerge.