The Fashion Show, True Blood, Next Food Network Star, I’m A Celebrity…, Heidi And Spencer And Roker… Oh My, And Josiah Leming… Google That

Bravo‘s The Fashion Show has enough episodes under its belt now that I think I can truly appreciate Project Runway.  How a show managed to get me to the point of actually missing Tim Gunn & co. I’ll never know, but the laughably similar Fashion Show has pulled it off.  It makes you wonder about all those delays in the Project Runway‘s move, and the little wrinkles in the deal that had to be ironed out.  Well, Bravo kept saying they wanted to do a similar show, and that’s not going to fly.  Finally, Lifetime saw the show, and let it go.  You want to put that show on brother, knock yourself out.

It goes pretty much without saying that none of these contestants had the slightest hope of getting of Runway, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing actually.  Runway is getting a little too odd in the direction of people who don’t exactly need Runway being the only people who can get on, but Fashion Show overcompensated a wee bit.  But, the real problem with the show are the host/judges.

Bravo Photo: Barbara Nitke

Now, Fern Mallis seems to know what’s what actually, so I’ll leave her alone.  Isaac Mizrahi, on the other hand, solidified his ability to contribute last week when he went after Johnny – the more normal of the pictured contestants (take a shot).

I gained a lot of respect for Johnny when his design ended up in the bottom two (and fair enough, it looked ridiculous).  The ruling came from the audience vote that suggested 90% said they wouldn’t buy Johnny’s outfit.  Johnny stood his ground, and if the thing didn’t look so awful, I’d have really been with him.  Basically, he said he aimed to design for the 10%.  Mizrahi looked like he was about to flip his lid completely, which on a normal scale means he looked mildly agitated.  Mizrahi went on and on about how fashion is a business and you have to sell.  Not only did he throw out the point, but he was rather condescending about the whole thing.  I mean, duh, for God’s sake, you have to sell the stuff you design… moron.

While we should all probably thank Mr. Target for his arrogant little jaunt down obvious lane, I have a couple of non-strenuous objections.  1) There does exist the odd designer here and there who aims to go a slightly different route than “Oooo, if only I get a line at Target,” and nevertheless is able to manage a modicum of success.  Donkey.  2) Only a week or two ago (because, come on, it’s a blur) Mr. Mizrahi slapped down a design for being too boring, despite the guest judge saying he thought it looked great and he could sell it all day long, and Isaac quickly shot back, basically, that it wasn’t about selling, ala some fashion is art theory or other.

That leaves us with our other host/judge Kelly Rowland.  In an only slightly modified universe, I’d leave her alone completely, but in the universe we’re in she keeps talking.  A founding member of Destiny’s Child, and generally attractive person, her relevance on a fashion show is… the same as yours.  In general, fair enough really, because who cares?  You got a person with some kind of celebrity status to agree to your show, so run with it.  But, when she went off on the B-girl designer last week it was too much.  The designers were challenged to update and age High School stereotypes (or something), and the jocks, and nerds, and most everything else you’d check off that list was represented.  When it came to the B-girl design, Kelly was offended.  Of course, it’s not absolutely clear if she was offended by the design itself, or the designer’s defense that she didn’t really know what a B-girl was, or B-girl fashion.  Keep in mind that there was much discussion by the contestants on this subject along the lines of, “Uhhh… I dunno, what do you think it means?”  The other judges ran to Kelly’s aide, scoffing at the very idea of not being familiar with B-girl culture, as it is, of course, absolutely pervasive in our society.

I’m horribly inclined toward some route of asking about all the B-girls you went to High School with, and throwing a really wicked tone of mockery in while I do so, because I want to stare blankly at you, but I’m also inclined to think that route is all for nought despite whatever efforts I may put forward (staring at you will be tricky see).  I’ll leave it to you to count the number of times you thought, “What the furious expletive is a B-girl,” during the course of that last paragraph.

Bravo Photo: Virginia Sherwood

If only the people involved were the only problem.  Alas…  In order to distinguish themselves somewhat, The Fashion Show has the designs narrowed down by the audience of the fashion show.  The result there is that the only design that wasn’t practically a part of the mockumentary show didn’t even get a mention.

What’s painful is that I’m really a fan of reality television, especially these sorts of shows.  The last series of Project Runway left a bad taste in my mouth, because “Dude takes break from cush job with Martha Stewart to take part in reality show,” doesn’t quite keep me interested.  ”Now I can quit my day job,” loses some of its appeal at a certain point.  As a general rule though, I like the opportunity for exposure offered by such shows.  No one who ever wins American Idol will put out a better song than This Cigar by Josiah Leming (and most couldn’t even appreciate it), but he needed the show and I’m glad it was there.

People are going to watch The Fashion Show, mostly because it’s there, but it’s on the road to becoming a sad joke.

In other recent Screening news, True Blood shot out of the gates on its return.  The crazed, yet interesting, vampire show laid a solid foundation for the upcoming season.  After playing around a bit during the first season with varying levels of “Oh my God!” things seem to have a place to reside, and the show looks as if it is solidifying its understanding of itself.  While I liked the first season fairly well, there were several episodes which felt like weird for weird’s sake, and the whole didn’t seem as comfortable with itself as it wanted to pretend.  The question often seemed more, “How long and how graphic can we get away with making this sex scene?” rather than anything about what actually served the purpose.  The major sex scene in this episode worked well, and largely because it felt like we were trying to figure out how much was enough, and not how much is possible.

Next Food Network Star is already making me very nervous, and you may be familiar with my general misgivings about the entire history of the show.  If you’re watching Big Daddy’s House… well, I’d love to hear about which TV/Food media outlet you work for.  I do admit to liking Will Work for Food though.  Already this season I’m having to deal with Katie here still being on the show.  I’m very, very nervous.  The show she’s apparently aiming for, “Oh My God! Health Food Sucks!” is somehow keeping her on the show, and I’m having trouble understanding the judges.

Finally, Janice Dickinson had health issues of a “being freakishly thin and monkeying with your diet” variety to go along with her display of sociopathic behavior on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! In related news, Speidi went on Today, but were only worthy of Al Roker’s time.  A clip of the show is in the sideblog if you haven’t caught it yet.  Roker went after Heidi and Spencer like a rabid dog, and only managed to make himself look exactly as competent as you’d expect.  Speidi promptly went on the radio with Ryan Seacrest and complained about Roker’s harsh treatment.  For the life of me I can’t imagine why, because as much as it pains me for Speidi to not look like fools, they completely pwned Roker.

Well… what have you been watching?

Are You Screening?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bravo’s Project Runway knock-off The Fashion Show debuts tonight (realityblurred.com)
• Kelly Rowland on “The Fashion Show” (beyonce-k.com)
• Welcome to The Fashion Show (sporkfashion.com)
• Television Review | ‘The Fashion Show’: Contestants Are Sewing, but the Hosts Are Cutting (nytimes.com)