Hamsters!

This is my love letter to Project Runway Canada. I've since watched the entire first season, and am now re-watching it with some friends, howling with laughter and once again feeling a mounting desire to hump the hell out of the Sasquatch* (except for that one episode where he's a total asshole). I love practically everything about it... where do I begin? Oh, right:

Iman is un-fucking-believable. At first her persona, and the theatrics, seem just so over the top, as if she were continuously blasting I-AM-IMAN-an-an-an straight into your ears. But after a few episodes... well, actually, nothing changes, except you find yourself answering "Yes you are!" From your knees. She's completely authoritative, merciless, and yet often gracious at the same time. In every episode she does something that has you on the floor in a peal of awestruck laughter - which is a truly bizarre reaction that I believe only she can ellicit. Whether she's pronouncing with righteous fury that "Goth is not trashy! It is a legitimate look!" (and hell yeah it is!), or going - completely out of the blue - ghetto on the Sasquatch, you just can't not love her.



The Canadian Elle judge Lady is very pretty, sweet, and concerned, but at the same time not beyond comments like "She says it's a girl with two personalities - well we've seen both: Boring and Tacky". The designer judge person seems like a really cool dude, and you have to admit Bubbles cleans up good. As for the mentor - there's just something so hilarious about him... I was completely wrong - he isn't Tim Gunn meets Magnum P.I. He's a just a Canadian Magnum, substituting any sort of campy suaveness for a clueless bus driver vibe. I don't know, it's as if he's so adorable in his uncoolness, it somehow actually makes him cool.

And then, of course, are the contestants. Most of which have moments of sheer brilliance. First of all there's Evan Biddell...


...aka the guy from Saskatchewan, who I wasn't entirely sure about at first, but couldn't say no to after hearing him say "She has a full-sized horseshoe stuck up her ass. Right next to a rabbit, with all four feet intact." There's also his nemesis, Lucien the Transylvanian pup, who did the most preplexing bit of passive-aggressive flirting with Uncle Nick from American PR. There's Marie-Genevieve, the French-Canadian girl, who annoyed the hell out of me throughout her stay on the show, and then completely redeemed herself in one of her last interviews. There's the lovely, classy, patient Kendra (*sigh, eyeroll* "Boys..."), Carlie, the little-engine-that-could from Vancouver, and Darryl Hannah (well, not really, but almost). And of course, the ultra-funny, creepily androgynous Stephen, author of:

Stephen, talking about Sasquatch and the Transylvanian: You're like two male hamsters thrown in together, and just going at eachother...
Sasquatch: No, you don't understand. It's like when two lions...
Stephen: HAMSTERS!

Okay, I ran out of steam, so that concludes my gush. I feel a bit guilty about being so into a fucking reality show - a genre I sitll consider to be the bane of television - but to be honest I haven't felt that excited about anything on TV for a very long time. I appreciate the aimless artistry of Mad Men, I want to see how Battlestar Galactica ends, and I get regular giggles out of The Office - but do they grip me the way this thing did? Not by a longshot. It's not The Wire. It's not Buffy. But it's absolutely top-notch entertainment.

I leave you with a line that had me giggling almost all the way back home, but won't be funny to anyone who hasn't witnessed any of the highly dramatic and elaborate Iman sendoffs:

Iman: Lucien! You said your outfit belongs on a Southern cruise ship, but you clearly went overboard...
*turns towards the next contestant*
Ana, cutting in: Shmandra! You suck.

(There was no contestant called Shmandra. It's just a name Ana, with no apparent humorous intention, assigned to poor Shernett because she couldn't be arsed to pay more attention to her, and which in Polish actually manages to convey a profound sense of bleh.)

* I'm just calling him that because he's from Saskatchewan, it's the best term of endearment I could come up with