Project Runway gets their motor running,Shear Genius' Finale cut and pop culture locking on The Middleman

Nina Garcia wasn't on the Judges' panel at Project Runway this week,so we had two new faces-Laura Bennett from Season Three took Nina's chair and the guest spot went to Rachel Zoe,a celebrity stylist who is about to have a reality series on Bravo called The Rachel Zoe Project(catchy name,guys!).




The challenge this time around was to make an outfit out of car parts. The designers were sent to a rooftop parking lot,where Tim Gunn and a Saturn car exec had five Hybrids filled with materials used in automobile making(seat belts,floor mats,headlights,etc)and five minutes for folks to gather up as much as they could to work with.



Blayne whipped up a seat belt gown with broken rear view mirror pieces as an embellishment. He had a good concept there,but the dress was very poorly fitted on the top half(it bagged out rather noticeably under the arms)which,as Laura pointed out,was a distraction from what he was trying to portray.

The judges thought it was too long,but I think he could've gotten away with that if the dress had fitted better. At least he did put some effort into this and cut down on the "licious",altho Suede may beat him out in the Annoying Catchphrase competition with "wackadoodle."



Jerell surprised me with this interesting little ensemble made from car mats and metallic parts;it looked very sci-fi without being costumey at all. The judges liked it as well and I have to say that Jerell is one to watch for.



Korto knocked another one out of the ball park,with her dress coat that was woven with seat belts. The cross hatching she did was amazingly elegant and it really impressed the judges. I knew her outfit would do well when Tim Gunn praised it during his work room rounds,saying it had a mod look.

Terri,on the other hand,was literally rolling around on the floor laughing at the coat and comparing it to the scarecrow monster in Jeepers Creepers. I wanted Korto to win just for putting up with that.



But Leanne was the winner and she did deserve it,for not only pulling off a puffy hip little cocktail dress but that stylish trim she made for the bodice as well. Leanne played around with strips of seat belts to find an interesting way to use them and her creative fiddling really paid off.



Too bad Stella wasn't as focused;I swear,anything where she doesn't get to pound grommits into leather totally confuses her. Even during the material collecting,she took her sweet time about getting stuff,saying "I'm not moving,why should I be rushing around for?" Uh,so that you actually have something to work with? Maybe pick up an idea or two while you're doing that?

The vest and the sloppy skirt were hopelessly mismatched and Stella had a real shot at being sent home. Keith,however,earned his dismissal in more ways than one.



Not only was his outfit dull and poorly made(the back of it looked like a disaster area needing to be verified by government forces),Keith's attitude was beyond horrible. He started off with whimpering off screen how he thinks that he's more deserving of a win than anyone else and how mean the judges were to him last time.

Then,before the runway show,his model had to go to hair and make-up with the incredibly tight skirt that he made on(the top wasn't finished yet)and had to sit down,which caused the skirt to rip. Keith was mad at her for that,since he had told her not to sit down or breathe too much,saying"I thought she could follow a simple instruction." Hey,did it ever occur to you that maybe you should've put that tight as Tillie skirt on her after hair and make-up,since you didn't even have the top ready,jerko?

To add insult to injury,Keith got defensive during the judging. He mumbled loudly under his breath to Laura that she "should have seen my other work" when she mentioned his lack of focus and griped openly about how the judges hurt his feelings during the drag queen challenge. "There's criticism and there's insults." Michael Kors did a major double take and laid the smackdown on him. Lucky for Keith that Nina wasn't there or he would be limping his way out the door.

Next week,the gang creates a design for Diane Von Furstenberg-woo to the hoo! That should cause quite a stir.



No more Shortcut challenges on Shear Genius-it was finale time and after a mini mentoring session with Linda Wells of Allure magazine,the stylists got one last scissor box selection to find out which hair color they would be working with.


The challenge was to tell the story of one woman's life thru four different styles on four different ages of women(18,30,45 and 60). Each stylist had to come up with a character,choose the wardrobe for their models and had only three hours to work on all four of them at once. A pretty tall order,to be sure.



Charlie chose blonde and he came up with a story about a child star who became a big breakaway film star,then went on to win an Oscar and by her sixties,directed her first film. Not bad,and it did give Charlie the chance to show off those retro hair styles that he loves. The judges liked it,but weren't thrilled with the hairdo on the 18 year old(Kim Vo said he wanted to stuff the hole in her hair with rice and beans) or some of the other upswept looks.



Nicole told the story of her mom's life as a regular gal who wound up being happy as a wife and mother. Nice,and she did pull off a couple of great brunette looks(the bob she gave the 45 year old was her best one)but she got overwhelmed with the highlighting and coloring during the challenge. The last look she did for the eldest of her models came off as unfinished,to say the least.



Dee had red to work with and created a tale about a rock n' roll singer who morphed over the years into a hip grandma music producer called "Momma Red". She had fun with this challenge and despite the time crunch,managed to put together a very cohesive look for all of her models. My personal favorite was the one for the 45 year old;the moment I saw it,I said "Cher!"(she did have that cut during her "Believe" stint). It completed the model's face perfectly.



So,who won? Dee was declared to be Shear Genius and deliriously happy about that. So was I and Yah! for Daniel,who was voted as the Fan Favorite(sweet). Congrats to Dee and best of luck to you and your mom. You both deserve it.




The Middleman will be closing up shop next week,but hopefully this will not be the last we hear from this quirky little show. It's not just a smartly written and charmingly well acted blend of comedy and sci-fi,this is a program that really knows how to take a pop culture iconic football and really run with it.

This week's episode had a great hour long riff on the "Die Hard" film series and this is not the first time that they've played off on a movie riff or other similar themes. Check out these clips and see what you've been missing:

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?



WHERE'S A DELORIAN WHEN YOU NEED ONE?



AND OF COURSE,THE OBLIGATORY JOHNNY CASH REFERENCE



RANDOM NOTES:



MAD MEN: Don's drive to the beach leads to a car accident which leads him to call upon Peggy and lead to more of a peak behind the curtain that still veils the mystery about what happened to her baby with Pete(it did look like her sister was raising the kid,but now I'm not so sure about that).

Meanwhile at the office,Don's new secretary gets an eyeful of the level of sophistication she can expect to see on the job:



TOP DESIGN: Season 2 of Bravo's answer to Design Star premieres next week,in Shear Genius's former time slot. It looks like they've hired a new host and perhaps have spruced things up from the last time around,to make this competition a bit more interesting: