At times I have come to question the reasoning of the Project Runway judges for kicking someone off. When Jesse was given the heave ho last week I thought in the end he should have been given a pass and Emilio should have left instead. This week, I did not question it in the least. Ah Ben, we barely had the chance to meet you…but more on him later.
This week’s challenge was to design a look inspired by one of nature’s 4 elements: Water, Air, Earth and Fire. The budget was the usual at $150 with one day to complete the challenge.

Jay, having been given the last of the immunity this week was given the chance to choose first, he chooses Air. The rest of the designers take their turn picking cards. Ben has Water, Mila picking Earth, Anthony picking Fire, Amy also ends up with Fire, Emilio takes Earth, Seth gets Air, and Jonathan also takes Air. Jonathan takes an interesting twist from the beginning on this challenge. He picks Laughter, the lightest side of Air  in his mind and prefers to show her enveloped in it. The model he uses as his muse and layers fabric together then cuts into it to give the look of opacity. It is gorgeous. His model is a pale blonde, and the dress highlights her features to a T. The dress was his best to date.

In contrast Seth Aaron takes it in a whole different direction, instead choosing to show the midnight looks of Air, from his apartment at midnight. It is dark and edgy, all leather. The pants are almost like boots, using strips of fabric to give them that shape. The guest judge, designer Roland Mouret praises him for the extra work, adding that some other bigger designer will be jealous he didn’t think of them first.

Amy…..well I am not sure what is going on with Amy this week. She has Fire, and designs a leather pant suit with a big cone/sling to resemble a well contained “Fire.” Instead it came across as a chaotic mess. The judges hated it. I hated it. Heidi said it looks like a cat in a baby sling…it just fell apart as Amy was way too involved in the concept and not the actual engineering of the outfit.

Ben’s suit…well let’s go back to when he started designing it. As I am learning Project Runway producers often do, when they want to highlight someone getting kicked off they show them talking to their significant other and missing them. Hence Janeane a few weeks ago. This week was no different with Ben. We had barely seen anything on him and this week he was at the forefront, for all the wrong reasons. His suit was atrocious. Michael Kors called it the “jock strap” pants due to the unflattering details on it.  The whole thing was inspired by Water and The Great White Shark. Heidi told Ben that if you can’t make a suit, you shouldn’t make a suit.” It was too bad he chose this week to explore that field. As he said, at that point he was too far into it to go back.

Mila can’t do her usual color blocking routine this week as she has Earth, and ends up with a “mineral” inspired outfit of a grey tweed sleeveless vest type jacket. Heidi only like the jacket saying that the rest of the outfit could have been bought anywhere, at any store.

In the end Ben ends up leaving, and Jonathan finally scores a much deserved win. I had pegged Amy as the dark horse, but perhaps Jonathan is just warming up for the final stretch.
                                                                                                                                                      – Mary B

Katherine Heigl is reportedly very close to reaching an agreement with the producers of Grey’s Anatomy to end her run on the popular ABC show after six years, EW.com reports.  As you read this, the only thing in question seems to be whether Heigl ever appears on the show again.

Michael Ausiello reports that Heigl’s camp was trying to reach an agreement before her March 1 return date – which was set following Heigl’s six-month break from Grey’s in order to work on a movie and connect to her adopted son.  And though an agreement wasn’t reached in time, Ausiello goes on to write that Heigl still didn’t show up on March 1, which basically means that she wants off the show and her people are working on an exit deal.

Series-creator Shonda Rhimes realized this and…

Sources confirm to me exclusively that series creator Shonda Rhimes has agreed to release the fast-rising movie star from her contract. It’s now up to ABC Studios and Heigl’s reps to hash out a final exit agreement.

via

There you have it. Heigl will soon leave Grey’s. What do you – fan of Grey’s Anatomy - think about her leaving the show?

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.

Jesse Plemons, who plays the beloved Landry Clarke on Friday Night Lights, will not return to FNL as a full-time cast member in the show’s fifth and final season.  The news comes via EW.com, who is the absolute source for breaking FNL news.

SPOILERS FROM HERE TO THE END

Plemons’ exodus from FNL doesn’t come as a surprise.  He was always the smartest on in Dillon High and it was pretty much a given that he would be going to college after graduating.  In my opinion, the biggest question mark about Plemons was his age.  He was driving in the first season of the show, but was still around in the show’s fourth season?  How does that make any sense?

Anyway, Plemons received a similar fate to almost every one of the show’s original high school castmembers.  Smash, Street, Lyla, Tyra, Matt and now Riggins are all off the show.

The one thing that people who will miss Landry should keep in mind is that there’s the possibility that we see Landry in the fifth season.  Tyra is expected to return and there wasn’t a definitive end to Landry’s storyline.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.

In the middle of its eighth season, Fox announced Wednesday that the current season will 24’s last.

Hint of the news leaked on the Internet Tuesday night and now, Wednesday afternoon, the guillotine has dropped. The Kiefer Sutherland-starring program will end after eight more episodes because of decreased ratings and rising costs.

But the good thing for 24 fans is that there have been serious talks of making a feature film to properly wrap things up.  So yes, it’s unfortunate 24 is going off the air because it represents the end of a beloved television show, but now, it won’t be a dissatisfying exit.  At least I don’t think it will be.

For more about the end of 24 and how the events of 9/11 made it so popular at the beginning of its run, please read Time magazine’s blog post about the show.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.

Washers and copper metal? Is this a new shop class? Actually it is just another wild trip for the designers of Project Runway. After taking a week off with a clip show last week, the designers again embarked on another chaotic adventure.

This time it was to the hardware store. With a budget of $150 and one day, the designers were tasked with presenting a look that was from their point of view along with an accessory to compliment their look.

One thing resonated with this episode. The guys loved copper metal and for most of them it worked out horribly. Emilio looked to do something different with washers and pink rope, but in the end he didn’t have enough materials, and was forced to make a string bikini. Far out and funky, he had to connect the top and bottom at the last minute, or face a wardrobe malfunction with his model. The bottom half of her outfit looked to drop at any second till he did connect them all.

Another thing that bothered me…where is the screen time for Jonathan and Ben? Are they just that boring? Or are the producers saving them for later? Okay, back to the guys. Jesse had a constricted bodice out of the copper with a skirt made out of netting. However, the netting was sticky and refused to flow the way he wanted. His design was nothing special. And it showed. Perhaps he lost his muse in Megan when she was kicked off the week before.

As much as I hate to say it, I REALLY liked Mila’s outfit this week. Her modern dress made out of paint tray liners was kicky and fun, and straight out of the 1960’s. It was black and white spunky. As much as she is a color block freak, she rocked this challenge. We will have to wait and see how long she can keep up with it before Heidi and friends get bored.

Jay had a wonderful design made out of trash bags that he turned into leather looking pants, and a strapless bodice with a wonderful belt. It was amazing. He was praised by the judges and in the end, beat out everyone else for his second victory.

Special mention goes to Maya. Her grey sheath dress and jacket was amazing, however her necklace made out of keys was fantastic. It was a strong, if not the strongest accessory piece. I wish the judges would have had a separate category for the accessories.

In the end, it came down to Jesse and Emilio. Sadly, Jesse was let go. To quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: “Big Mistake, HUGE.” Emilio should have been kicked off. The judges blew it this week. Now that we are down to the final nine, it will be interesting to see how soon everyone cracks under the increasing pressure. My guess? Not long. Here’s to a better Week Eight.

-Mary B

In a normal scenario, an announcement similar to the one with the headline above would be a terrible thing for fans of the show that was soon ending. There would be outcry and disgust.

But not with Friday Night Lights. The Peter Berg-created show has seen its life flash before its eyes about a thousand times since it first went on the air and at this point, I think FNL fans are just thankful that they have seen one of the most unique shows of modern-day television get a long and full life.

Which is a good thing because FNL will end after its fifth season.

If you’re a television nerd like me, then you can certainly remember back to Friday Night Lights‘ first season when it was almost cancelled.  That was the first bullet missed.  The second was following the second season, when it was almost canceled once again.  And then after the third season, it seemed almost certain that FNL would be cancelled until a last-minute two-season deal between NBC and DirecTV saved the show.

At that point, it seemed like there wasn’t any way Friday Night Lights would see a sixth season and that has held true.  But who cares? We received a proper send off for Saracen, Riggins and Street.  And I’m sure everything will be satisfactory in the final season because I trust the FNL braintrust.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.

Just weeks after, in essence, firing Conan O’Brien, NBC has ordered a pilot from O’Brien and The Tonight Show executive producer’s Conaco productions.

The pilot from O’Brien’s company has not yet been officially titled, but is currently being referred to as “Justice”.  It was written by John Eisendrath and reportedly centers around an ex-Supreme Court justice who leaves the country’s high court to start his own practice.  In Hollywood’s inner circles, it’s considered one of the season’s best pilots.

Ross and O’Brien will co-produce the project, making it a very real possibility that O’Brien could provide with the network that pulled the rug out from under him as the host of The Tonight Show with a hit show it has been seeking for several TV seasons.

This seems strange, doesn’t it?

The reason the pilot is on NBC is because Conaco operates under the NBC umbrella, basically making them a part of the NBC family.  And in O’Brien’s $33 million settlement to exit The Tonight Show, he and the network agreed that Conaco would continue to operate under the NBC umbrella until the end of the TV season.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.

Three years removed from closing the book on epic crime drama The Wire - seemingly the favorite television show of 95% of television critics – show creator David Simon has created a new television show for HBO.  It’s called Treme and is about post-Katrina New Orleans.

In the attempt to promote Treme, Simon recently did a full-length Q&A with The Guardian. It’s a fantastic interview and further proves that Simon is indeed a genius (further confirming what we knew from The Wire), but the best excerpt is unquestionably Simon’s point about the influence New Orleans has had on music across the world.

What is it about Americans that makes us Americans? The one thing we have unarguably given the world is African-American music. If you walk into a shebeen in South Africa, or whatever version of a bar they have in Kathmandu, if they have a jukebox, you’re going to find some Michael Jackson, some Otis Redding, some John Coltrane. It has gone around the world. That is the essential American contribution to worldwide culture. The combination of African rhythms and the pentatonic scale and European instrumentation and arrangement. That collision of the two happened in a 12-square block area of a city called New Orleans that had a near-death experience in 2005.

Treme premieres April 11th on HBO.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.

As always Project Runway strives to terrify the designers each week with new and innovative challenges. This week was no exception. It involved designing a young girl’s outfit with a budget of $50. The designers were both awed and looked generally nervous when talking to their young charges about what they wanted in an outfit.
Seth Aaron was one of the designers that the nerves did not affect. He knocked out a fabulous little hoodie in black and white hounds tooth accentuated with pink. And an adorable little skirt. The designs were fresh and clean with a rocker edge. The twist this week was that the designers had to make a companion outfit for the kid’s one. Seth Aaron did the fearlessly as well. His companion outfit he overlaid black and white fabric to make a pattern resembling hounds tooth. It was definitely a fashion forward jacket, and went with the child’s outfit fabulously.

Jesse had a sweet little outfit of a red wool coat he tailored with a grey dress and red accents. She looked straight out of the children’s book “Madeline.” Her Mom outfit was a black, grey and red dress that  mimicked the kid’s outfit. It was one of his better pieces.

One person that did not do well this week was Amy…she fell off the pedestal that I had been putting her on. Her color scheme was orange, black, turquoise and cream. The kid’s outfit was a tulip skirt with the orange petals. The sweater she designed was turquoise. It was very cute. Her little model loved it. The companion outfit however was a bit of a disaster. Tim had warned her in the work room that the pants could either knock people’s socks off or look like a clown outfit. Unfortunately it was the clown part.

Janeane was also not grasping this challenge. Her outfit of an orange long tank top (though she called it pink when Tim accused her of going all Halloween on this week) and leggings were cute, but way too simple. Her model fared no better with an orange jacket, a really adorable black and white patterned tank top and leggings. Heidi deemed it a “cheap mall outfit.” She seemed kind of distant this week and not really into it. You wonder if she just wanted to go home after talking to her husband and saying how much she really missed him.

Seth Aaron claimed victory this week; he gained immunity for next week. Unfortunately Janeane went home. I don’t think it was a bad thing. She was unable to hold her own with Emilio, Anthony, Jay, Amy and Mila. And their battle is just starting to heat up now that they are clearing out the weaker designers.

Next week’s challenge looks interesting. They are in a hardware store. We will just have to wait to see how the contestants fare and hopefully not lose any nuts or bolts in the process!

 -Mary B

Criminal Minds has quietly become one of the most popular television shows running, so popular in fact that CBS is developing a spin-off pilot.

The eye network has already lured Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker as the male lead, which is a significant get solely because the network can say “Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker stars in (unnamed pilot), part of CBS’ new Wednesday night lineup.”

Just as important, however, is Beau Garrett, the female lead CBS has hired to star opposite Whitaker.  Garrett has a history of acting in film, having starred in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and the upcoming Tron sequel.  She will play Gina, a young and tough girl who was just recruited into the FBI and is attracted to one of the young male cast members.

The Criminal Minds spinoff will be introduced during a spring episode of the hit CBS program.  Stay tuned to this space, as I know everyone does, for more details about the spinoff.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, visit RipcordNews.com.