On Mar 17, 2006, at 10:03 AM, M. Adam Davis wrote:

> It seems to be an interesting show.  Like all "reality TV" they seek
> out and use people with very strong personalities, or who are very
> presentable.
	:
> I wish they told us more what the format of the remainder of the
> season is going to be:  How many more "first round" judging sessions
> there are, what the next rounds will consist of, etc...

My wife and family watched "project runway", a "reality" show
based on fashion design.  They picked 16 unknown fashion designers,
and after the initial selection, issued successive challenges that
all the designers has to address.  Each session, they picked one
winner (receiving assorted minor rewards), and one (or two) loser 
(eliminated from the show), till there was only one winner left
(major awards.)

Some of the challenges were pretty interesting.  Design an outfit
for Barbie (the doll.)  An outfit for a figure skater.  Something
made with items from a garden store.  Something made with "the
clothes you're wearing now."  We did get the impression that some
of the entrants lasted "past their time" due to their personality
making for a more interesting show, rather than actual skill.

Apparently fashion designers are a whimpy lot, and I didn't see
any of the cut-throat competitiveness I might have expected based
on advertisements for other "reality programming."  And it just
finished its second season, so I guess people liked it anyway.

An "inventor" show along those lines might work.  Although if they
had to actually make anything, I'd expect the "invention" aspect
to get buried by the "build it" aspect.  That happened occasionally
to the fashion designers as well (stuff falling apart on the runway),
but at least sewing and design are more intimately related than
invention and ALL the myriad skills needed to actually produce a
working model...  (of course, that IS where many inventions bog
down; when the inventor make a bad assumption about how easy or
hard a particular thing is to actually IMPLEMENT.)

BillW
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