'Project Runway' Season Premiere: When Lindsay Met Sam?

Project Runway may have moved to Lifetime for the show's sixth season, but the premiere on Thursday proved the change in channel hasn't diminished the drama one bit. Of course, since six of the eight male competitors on the show are gay, that's hardly a surprise.

The season premiere of Project Runway was both comfortably familiar and weirdly different than prior seasons. Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum are once again at the helm, but this season the competition takes place in Los Angeles rather than New York due to the show's move from Bravo to Lifetime. Little has changed about the sets and design of the show, but the change in location made things feel just slightly out of whack to a long time fan. A different crew behind the camera changes the whole tone of the show in subtle ways. For me, this resulted in a strange feeling of unease and impatience throughout the course of the premiere. The cinematography just seemed to drag and dawdle around a bit too much.

What hasn't altered however is Project Runway's status as one of the gayest reality shows on television. The sixth season boasts no less than six openly gay male designers competing for the top prize. Rather unsurprisingly, the two most drama filled incidents during the first episode were courtesy of queer contestants Johnny Sakalis and Mitchell Hall. Tasked with creating a "red carpet" dress design, both designers had their own personal brand of meltdowns.

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Johnny, it turns out, is a recovering meth addict who isn't quite sure if he's strong enough on his feet yet to handle the stress of Project Runway. In the first challenge, he went totally to pieces - and it is painful to watch a grown man sob uncontrollably. Thankfully, charming mentor Tim Gunn was on hand to lend Johnny a comforting shoulder to cry on in his moment of need. After an emotional pep talk, Johnny was able to throw himself back into the challenge with a new attitude and push through. Since he ended up producing one of the better designs for the runway, we're happy he didn't just decide to flake out and ditch.

Gay contestant Mitchell provided the other major drama during the premiere. Apparently he was unaware that models often lie about their measurements. So he'd already committed himself too far into his design when his model showed up for the first fitting, only to discover she was five or six inches bigger than his info card specified. Instead of handling the problem with grace, Mitchell completely freaked out and fell flat on his face. His end design, a sheer moo moo so embarrassing Britney Spears wouldn't be caught dead in it, landed him one short step from being eliminated. Mitchell lost major cool points for basically blaming the whole debacle on his model. Which model Yosuzi Sylvester then dissed him for nicely on the new Models of the Runway series, which premiered right after the Project Runway opener. Sadly, Yosuzi ended up getting the short end of the stick when she failed to be chosen by a designer for the next episode of Project Runway.

Luckily for Mitchell, the bizarre sci-fi blanket dress created by designer Ari was just a bit more horrible. The outfit Michael Kors called a "disco soccer ball" was so hideous that the fashion police should ban Ari Fish from touching scissors or sewing machine ever again. I've been a rabid fan of the show since season one and few outfits have provoked the "WTF was she thinking???" comment from me more rapidly than Ari's disastrous design.

Personally, I thought designer Ra'mon Lawrence's purple evening gown was the most attractive of the designs to go down the runway. The judges, however, preferred Christopher Straub's punk/princess dual design dress for a hypothetical VMA Awards red carpet and he was granted the top spot and immunity in the next episode.

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No lesbian designers on this season of the show, but fans were gifted with the unpleasant honor of watching pseudo-bisexual guest judge Lindsay Lohan grimace through the entire judging process. It seemed that every design down the runway made her face crinkle up into a strange, pained look. Maybe she was fighting a serious hangover -- or a nasty bout of constipation. Either way, whoever decided Lindsay Lohan was the pinnacle of style to judge the season premiere's first runway challenge obviously had been sneaking hits off someone's bong. 

Interesting, losing designer Ari bears a certain resemblance to Lohan's sort of ex-girlfriend Samantha Ronson. Wonder if that might have been the final straw that sealed her fate as the first eliminated contestant? Or maybe Lindsay shot her a "call me" glance when the cameras were averted.

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