Fingers crossed the parties embroiled in Project Runway's network-jumping litigation will take the advice of Tim Gunn and make it work. Otherwise, it may not be just the losing designers we'll be bidding auf Wiedersehen.
The show could take upward of a year to return to the small screen following next week's fifth-season finale, according to the Los Angeles Times, because of legal wrangling between producers and networks.
The Weinstein Company was expecting to jump ship, taking Project Runway and a planned spinoff, Models of the Runway, to Lifetime, but the New York State Supreme Court put the kibosh on the plans, granting the Bravo-owning NBC Universal's injunction to temporarily block the show from airing on another network.
The move has not only left Project Runway—which is already well into production on its sixth season—without a network, but without a timeline.
"I think they're going to be sad if they have to wait," host Heidi Klum said in the Times of the show's fans. "And, of course, we will be sad too. But we're all sitting in the same boat. We don't really know what is going to happen."
Which isn't necessarily the bad news it's being made out to be, according to resident fashion mentor Gunn.
"Frankly, I've been more worried about having too much Runway, thinking, oh, my God, people are going to overdose on this," he told the paper. "The fans will wait for us. I have every confidence in that."
If true, those are some patient fans.
Runway had been slated to debut on Lifetime in January to coincide with a finale set at New York Fashion Week in February. Should a resolution to the legal wrangling not be reached by then, the show would need to be delayed until at least next summer, when producers could time the finale with September's Fashion Week.
Whenever Runway does come back, producers are doing the best they can to ensure it was worth the wait, having already lined up guest judges Lindsay Lohan, Eva Longoria Parker and Rebecca Romijn. Gunn and regular judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia are all coming back for the new cycle, which will be set in L.A.
"We've had a lot of criticism from people where they thought, 'Oh, it's not going to be the same, or it's not going to be as cool,' " Klum said. "For everyone who's worried out there, they shouldn't be worried, because it is just as cool. The only thing that really is different is the talent on the show."
And that pesky question of a network.
Image:© 2008, , Barbara Nitke/BRAVO
