The end of my Project Runway love?

I finally watching the finale of season 6 of Project Runway. This latest season marked a huge departure from previous seasons because the backing tv network changed from Bravotv to Lifetime. I think it's safe to say that the change has hurt PR more than it helped.

For some reason, Lifetime thought that shooting the season in Los Angeles would be better than keeping the show in New York. One problem with shooting the show in LA is that the main judges - Nina Garcia and Michael Kors - are simply unavailable. They work in NYC and it's easy for them to go and do some judging if the show is there, but flying across the country is not so easy for them.

So instead, the show featured a number of celebrity guest judges who weren't connected to the fashion industry and who didn't know much about fashion or clothing construction. They didn't improve the judging or the challenges, although they did provide some eye candy, I suppose.

These two judging changes meant that none of the real judges were able to see how the designers developed over the entire season. They couldn't see that someone was showing exactly the same look over and over. They couldn't see that the designers weren't growing or developing a stronger voice.

Judging aside, a major problem with this last season was a lack of interesting challenges or designs. There were no interesting construction material challenges. There were very few pants. There was no pushing the designers outside of their comfort zone. Every challenge could be met with a dress... so everyone did dresses. Out of normal fabric.

And because the judges weren't there to call the designers on the sameness of their designs week after week, the season got more and more uninteresting. By the time we reached the finale collections, somehow two of the finalists developed very, very similar silhouettes. It really did look like one poorly copied the other. One of the finalists did copy a licensed design... and when called on it, she copied other words that appeared in a magazine. That's so not cool.

Where's the variety? Where's the spark? Where are the truly difficult challenges? Where's the talent? Not in PR season 6. There was just nothing to get excited about. At no point during the season did I leap out of my seat and shout, "I love it!" or "what were they thinking???"

Word is that the next season will be/has been shot in New York again. If the actual challenges don't get more interesting - if we get the same uninspired looks and designs throughout the season as we did in season 6 - that'll be the last season of Project Runway I watch. After all, if we don't get to see the talent the designers have, and we don't see them stretch their designer wings throughout the season, what's the point? There are better things to do with my time than watch the Project Runway crap Lifetime put out.