In all three episodes of these three shows this week, we saw situations where the game took control of the players, and where their sewing, their cooking and their scheming felt so clearly defined by the game that I was simultaneously interested and bored. So when you find yourself frustrated with a fairly boring season of Project Runway, or impatient with a season of Top Chef, or find Survivor’s villains too much to handle, you need to ask yourself if this it the result of the game or the people who are playing it. Every episode of all three shows is essentially about the way the producers construct the game (the challenges, the conditions, the time limits, even the casting itself), and the players are forced to interpret and operate within that game as they see fit. In our weekly glimpse into the world of Survivor: Samoa, Top Chef, and Project Runway, it’s important to distinguish between the game and the players of that game.
And while there’s not enough here to convince me that there aren’t better uses of my Thursday nights once fall programming and life kicks in, there is enough here worth discussing in terms of how the show is looking to shift their point of interest from the competition to the contestants – it may not be enough to keep me watching, but it’s enough to show that they’re starting to understand some of the series’ problems. However, since things are slower now than they will be in three weeks, I figured I would tune into the premiere to see how the show is using its 90 minutes, and to see how they’re trying to shake things up to engage new viewers.
MERLIN PROJECT RUNWAY SERIES
It’s fitting that Project Runway’s eighth season began with the contestants “auditioning” for a position on the series proper, as I considered this premiere to be the series’ audition for my time.Īfter an incredibly rough sixth season in L.A., and a completely unmemorable return to New York in its seventh year, Project Runway is on its way out of my television schedule, and this season was designed to test my attachment to the series: stretching each episode out to 90 minutes makes it an even larger commitment (at least for those of us who ignore Models of the Runway, as we all should), and the series’ fundamental lack of cultural cache – I hadn’t even realized it was premiering – means that giving up on it is unlikely to really impact me in the future. Walking in Designers’ Shoes: Project Runway Season 8 It’s not really a fair fight in terms of filmmaking or the depth of the ensemble, but The Happiest Season was nonetheless faced with the same narrative question as the year’s other attempts to “Queer the Christmas Movie” on cable: how do you reconcile the continued struggle LGBTQ individuals face in finding love (and living life) with the genre’s sweeping, romantic happy endings? Continue reading →
MERLIN PROJECT RUNWAY MOVIE
This places the movie it into a different conversation about how the snowy cottage industry of “Cable Christmas Movies” is navigating similar questions of inclusion, with three channels (Hallmark, Lifetime, and Paramount Network) also using queerness as a point of articulation this holiday season.ĭirected by Clea DuVall, The Happiest Season has structural advantages compared to your average Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movie: it has a veritable movie star in Kristen Stewart, supporting players like Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie, and the budget to hire a stacked supporting cast and ensure it doesn’t aesthetically look like it was produced at the rapid pace of a daytime soap opera. And while that fact essentially remains true, the set at Christmas film’s move to Hulu obscured that distinction, meaning The Happiest Season launched at a time when Netflix and an increasingly large number of cable channels are releasing a slew of holiday rom-coms. It was originally touted as the first major studio lesbian romantic comedy, following in the footsteps of 2017’s Love, Simon in breaking new ground for queer representation within genres exclusively imagined as heterosexual in a theatrical context. When The Happiest Season debuted on Hulu in November, having been shuffled to the streaming service after the COVID-19 pandemic closed cinemas around the world, the significance of its release was somewhat muted.
0 kommentar(er)
