The Tendo View

The seventh season of Project Runway starts on Thursday, January 14, and I await it with the same feeling of anticipation and dread that I experienced when watching Star Wars Episodes I-III: I wanted to love these movies as much as I loved Episodes IV-VI, but they just kept disappointing me. 

As for Project Runway, it was love at first site. The show weaves several of my interests and preferences into one neat cloth: sewing, fashion, creativity, problem solving, TV shows that start and end a story arc in one hour, etc. So, a series that offers 16 aspiring designers the chance to launch fashion careers by responding to a series of very creative challenges was a delight.

In contrast to other reality shows, Project Runway managed to capture the personality of these contestants without chronicling the petty moments, and the feedback from the judges, while not always positive, was always balanced and professional.

At least, that was the case for the first five seasons. Season six? Not so much.

After a much-publicized brawl between Bravo, The Weinstein Company, NBC, and Lifetime—and a delay of nearly a year—season six aired on Lifetime in August 2009. The network assured viewers that it had no desire to tinker with the show—it would keep the same format. It was true to its word: With the exception of the location change to Los Angeles, the show remained the same.

Except that it didn’t.

Season six was demonstrably different than the previous five—it just felt, well, wrong. It puzzled me: The episodes were, shot for shot, structurally the same format as the previous seasons, so why did it feel so off?

It took me a couple of episodes before I could put my finger on it: It was mean. The whole tone of the season was mean. Host Heidi Klum was mean, the other judges were mean, and the contestants were mean. The only non-meanie was, of course, series mentor Tim Gunn. Tim is never mean.

I do not enjoy mean. I enjoy nice. I enjoy creative. Season six was none of those things. Seasons one through five centered on the creative challenges the designers faced; season six focused more on the interplay between the designers. Which was mean.

Yet Project Runway is (ostensibly) a reality show. So, the designers and judges aren’t (supposed to be) reading lines. Unless that changed, the fact that season six felt different means that someone edited it to be different. It was edited to change the tone.

Editing and tone are a couple of things I feel pretty strongly about. Editing should sharpen language and/or visuals, keeping the intent of the content creator intact. Editing should help clarify tone—not create it.

Yet tone is a tricky thing. It’s how you connect with your audience. To hit the right tone, you need to know your audience, and their preferences and habits, so you can weave in the proper language, visuals, music—anything that shows your audience that you understand them.

Seasons one through five of Project Runway had a much more balanced tone. The show managed to convey the designers’ struggles and triumphs without focusing on name-calling, hissy fits, and backstabbing. Unlike season six.

Is this new tone something Lifetime wanted? Do they think their demographic responds better to nasty exchanges and snide comments than they would to truly creative challenges and the innovative solutions provided by the designers in previous seasons? I guess I’ll find out on Thursday.

Let me know what you think of the “new” tone on Project Runway—or if you think I’m way off base.