Project Runway: The Model of a Modern Major General Malaise

Project Runway is all about vision and delusion. The vision to let the models pick their clothes, the delusion that they have taste. The vision to move a show and change producers, the delusion that quality won't slip.

This week wasn't as bad as last week's abyssmal surfwear challenge, but it wasn't that much better. This year, it was a rehash of the season one challenge where the models get to tell the designers what to wear, yet another way that the black hole of despair called Models of the Runway is pulling our beloved show into it's gravity.

The problem with the challenges this year is that everything is just "here's something to do and a reasonable budget to do it with, now let's go to the fabric store." In the past, the vision of the show was not that people made pretty frocks each week, but that they did it out of garbage or car parts or food or Hershey Kiss wrappers. At home we would sit in awe of their skill and ingenuity. Now we just quip about how much better the show was on Bravo.

Things we hated:

• Missing Judges: This week both Queen Tangerine Michael Kors and Nina Garcia Fashion Director of Marie Claire Magazine were absent. This is Kors' third week in a row. Not only have the replacements been subpar, but the judges are part of the reason we watch the show. If they can't make it to all the tapings (and really, how many are there) it's time to find a new judge who can. We're sick of these substitute teachers.
• The Replacement Judges: We have never heard of this Marc Bouwer person, and his red tie on red shirt combo looks like something you'd buy in cellophane from TJ Maxx. Sending Zoe Glassner from Marie Claire instead of Nina Garcia is like when Joe Biden shows up at your funeral. If we can't have our favorite two judges, at least get us Fern Mallis. Or make Tim finally dish the designer dirt.
• That No One Is Horrible: By this point in a season of Runway there is usually at least one person to despise, and the hope of seeing him go home each week makes us tune in. This year, there's no one that awful or untalented to rail against. Yeah, there are a few people we like, but heroes are as easy to create as a pair of draw string pants. Give us the ornate couture structure of a good villain!
• Lady Vitamin Commercials: The worst part about moving to Lifetime is the repetition of commercials for dish soap, tampons, pregnancy tests, and, this week's new terror, Centrum's lady vitamins. What, does taking them make your vagina stronger and sparklier?

Things We Loved:

• Jennifer Rade: Now here is a lady who we would like to see again. A celebrity stylist, she was this week's guest judge, but she was really the third of three guest judges. We could watch a whole hour of Rade's mane berating designers. She's crazy, inappropriate, and just what judging panel needs. If Kors is going to keep ditching the show, they'd better sign Rade.
• Shirtless Logan: 'Nuff said.
• Epperson Talking: Up until last week, we'd never heard the man utter a sound. Now you can't shut him up, and he seems pretty cool.

In the end, it was Spell Check who went home for her way-too-boring but competent basic black number. Our Girl Althea took home her first win for a skirt and jacket combination that looked right off the back of a fashionable city girl. We may have picked ourselves a winner. Irina also impressed with a printed dress with a snazzy jacket and Kenley Jr. continued to be overlooked with a short, intricate black dress with a huge neck that looked like a scarf of seaweed in the coolest way possible. Oh, and Ra'Mon, before you get all high and mighty because you won last week, we just want to remind you that we saw your blue dress with the enormous flower on the shoulder in Sex and the City, and we didn't like it then either. Also, with Spell Check gone and an apostrophe in your name, you are now our object of ridicule. Be warned.

Of course, there were some other monstrosities, but to find out about those, we go to the videos!