"Project Runway"!

It's back. Season Three. Did you watch the opening two shows? I saw it last night when I was very tired, so I'm not sure I absorbed it all that well. So, just a few stray observations:

1. Malan is sooooooo annoying. Was he put on the show just because he was that annoying and willing to go about being so openly annoying all the time? I've got a bit too much of a feeling that he deliberately presented himself that way to get onto the show and it worked. I don't want to reward that by enjoying him. But isn't it absurd to spend any time thinking about reality show ethics? I'm going to argue no, it's not. We're talking about a world in which you are already watching the show, devoting your attention to it. You might as well benefit from the pleasurable side effects of having a human brain. This sophisticated organ can be exploited for sheer, pointless fun.

2. That guy with the writing tattoo'd all over his neck? I'm fed up to here with looking at his neck! Why would you go and mess up your whole neck like that? How can his judgment about anything be trusted?

3. That basket-hat guy who looks like the young Elton John? Vincent. We're worried about him. But I bet he pulls it together. Andrae seemed loony in that crying jag scene early in Season 2, but he turned out to have a sound mind to go along with his brimming emotions. (Similar: Dave on "Top Chef.") I don't think they'd edit in so much footage if he really was mentally compromised.

4. I hated seeing everyone ripping up the apartment to show their dedication to competition. Ordinarily, in the past, contestants have had to scrimp or be judicious in gathering raw material. You'd have X amount of money in a particular store, in most cases. Here, it was first come, first served, and players greedily stuffed as much as they could into their bags. It reminded me of one of that old supermarket shopping spree game show where they put all the hams in the cart. Too ugly! And then we were supposed to laugh that they had to deal with the consequences of their own destruction by having to live in their ruined apartments!

5. The woman that got kicked off? Well, of course, she deserved it. She didn't know how to work a sewing machine! And no one wants to wear grandmother's underpants...

ADDED: A commenter offers this link of an NPR interview with WaPo fashion critic Robin Givhan. She refers to a new column of hers... ah, here it is. There's a lot about Malan -- Malan Breton: "Breton dresses in formal suits and wears his dark hair slicked back. He has the sleepy eyes of Macaulay Culkin and a self-conscious accent that sounds like a mix of Madonna, Martin Bashir and the Geico gecko." [Link fixed.]