Project Runway: Season 7

Project Runway has always been a true guilty pleasure that has provided much entertainmeent. The first 5 seasons were on Bravo and the show shined for it managed to provide contestants with unique and quirky personalities, great talent, a great host in Heidi Klum and very unique challenges that allowed the contestants to show their true capabilities. Then there was the beloved fashion guru Tim Gunn who is the glue that holds the whole show together with hist wit, personality and spot on criticisms. No judges could be more perfect here than Michael Kors ann Nina Garcia. There was a magic to all this that just made the show one of the best reality shows on tv. Some thought it started to die down with season 5 but I totally disagree. Every viewer will have a favorite season based on the contestants that were on each season. It hugely comes down to them and their personalities and talent. My favorite season was season 2 with Daniel. For many it was season 4 with Christian Siriano.

But all agree that with season 6 when the show made its huge move to Lifetime it became a big bore. The location was moved from New York to Los Angeles which started off everything that was bad. New York always provided a quick pace, hustle and strong vibrancy that was a huge part of the show. New York is also the fashion mecca and Los Angeles was just a huge mistake. And due to the location change Michael Kors and Nina Garcia were usually not avaiuible to judge and this totally killed the show. And add to it the most boring contestants ever. Each one lacked any personality, had very average talent and the whole season was very predictable. You knew who the winner would be from the beginning and you just didn't care. What a waste.

But now we have season 7 and Hooray!! - It is back in New York, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia are again permanent residents and the vibrancy has returned. There is again a great mix of contestants with varying talents and personalities. Lots of fun. My favorites are Anthony, Ping, Jonathan, Mila and Seth. Challenges are again very inventive, trips to MOOD for supplies are again fun and bottom line - Project Runway is back in all its glory. Don't let the fall with season 6 scare you away. Season 7 is again a return to all that has made Project Runway shine and such a hit. Let Heidi and Tim Gunn guide you on a journey filled with lots of fun, drama, personality and most of all great fashion talent. Again contestants you will care about and challenges that will hugely entertain. Highly recommended.

If you have been watching this for seven seasons, as I have, you can virtually watch this show with a clipboard in hand, checking off everything that must take place within the show. This includes right down to what each judge is sure to say as his or her pet peeve. (Nina Garcia's is, "It looks cheap.") The show also picks the personalities surest to conflict with others and then promotes that agitation for all it is worth. Personally the main reason I kept watching is to see interesting challenges and the creations which emante from them. The rest is just window dressing, stale and overdone.

It is not that this season is worse than the others. It is that it is the same.

The above said, there are some very good designers who make some very compelling designs. There are also some designers who create true atrocities. The best of the designers were Seth, Emilio, and Maya. MIla also does a fairly good job, especially on sportswear. However, her technique of color blocking is overdone. Anthony is erratic and does either A or F work.

Right now I could be lured by another sort of design competition which was fresher and less predictable than this one is. There is no such show as of the moment but I really would like to see someone develop such a show.

I agree with many of the other comments - it was really nice to see the show return to its roots. It definitely is not the same based in LA. New York just seems far more organic to the fashion world. I really liked seeing the normal judges more often. I also think some of the contestants in this show were, on average, more talented than in some of previous series. There are no huge clashes of character, like in series one, but interesting designers all the same.

My only complaint is the lack of any special features to the DVD. Clearly it is put out there as quick as possible, without any extra care taken with providing extra info for fans. I would really like to know what happened to the designers after the show -- say 6 months down the road. Did their careers take off or not? Past DVD's made a lazy attempt to do this, but at least it was something... hence my 3 star rating.

Overall, if you've seen all the other Project Runways, you're probably going to buy this series, not matter what I say, and so you should - at the end of the day, despite my gripes, it's one of the better additions.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews  4.4 out of 5 stars