YOU CAN'T TRIPLE-STAMP A DOUBLE STAMP!

Dear god Christopher, how can you say SO MUCH stuff that leaves you wide open for ridicule?

"I know my place in this competition. I'm the wacky, weird guy." NO. "This dress encompasses everything I am as a designer." THIS dress. Inspired by rocks. Made out of a stiff, awkward, dull grey with the diarrhea-brown accents and a crumpled, crayon-looking tie die stain on the bottom PLUS an ugly, unflattering corset? This guy is in the final five. That's all that needs to be said about this season.

Except to say that Gordana getting auf'd was complete cracked-out judging, producer-meddling bullshit. But what else to expect? The show's just thrown up its hands this season. The designers just bitch at each other and the judges are just vicious because they're all so shit. EVERY WEEK they have the EXACT SAME challenge, which is to make a pretty dress, and EVERY WEEK they fail.

So Project Runway Australia has been pretty awesome this season, the first I have watched it, with the entertaining/repellent drama mongers culled out about half-way through to allow the focus to settle on people with some real promise and a sweet nature. In fact, probably the best thing about the last few episodes is seeing just how strong the friendship is between the final three. The pleasure they took in each other's successes was really delightful to watch, almost as affecting as the inevitable snapshots of familial love and pride that accompany the runway show and announcement of the winner.

( more thoughts on the finale )

Henry is no Tim Gunn but is a vital presence in the show, an enthusiastic and friendly mentor who seems to form a real relationship with the designers and come to care about them. The worst parts of the show are at the start and end, where it gets tied up in its generic drama, in interminable pauses, dubious editing and portentous music, and where it is sabotaged by the unending fidgeting of Hinze. You would think that as a model she would know how to hold herself but hosting is a thankless role in itself and she doesn't have the poise or charisma of Heidi -- let alone the accent -- to make it work and it can get pretty excruciating. It's an even wider gulf than that between the immeasurably fabulous Cat Deely and Natalie Bassingthwaite on So You Think You Can Dance.

There are other comparisons to be made -- the more challenging and creative challenges compared to season 6 of PR US, the swearing, the greater acknowledgment of economics by the judges -- but ultimately what strikes me most is the discombobulation of local accents and local (well, Melbourne) streetscapes transplanted seemingly unproblematically into the PR skeleton with exactly the same production values, sets, music, colours, editing etc. As it stands though it is probably the most decent local reality knockoff I've seen, which I think speaks to the strengths of the original. Unlike SYTYCD which as great as it is can just be interminable in the length of episodes, the craziness/boorishness of certain judges and the utter heights of blandness routines can achieve, PR is generally snappy and interesting. If only it would forego the abovementioned irritating generic conventions it would be a good fifty minutes of lean mean entertainment.