A couple of seasons ago, I thought I’d pretty much figured out the formula behind Bravo’s lifestyle-reality shows – like Project Runway and Top Chef and a few other vastly less-interesting ones.  Each season, the final 3-4 contestants would be:

1. The insufferably arrogant (often gay) guy:  Santino (Project Runway 2), Kevin (PR 3), Hung (Top Chef 3)
2. The extremely talented guy:  Daniel Vosovich (PR2)
3. The hot babe:  Casey Thompson (TC3), Jillian (PR4), Leah (PR5)

This season, Top Chef‘s producers must have read this blog and decided to change it up a bit.

Oh, some of the picks seem easy enough:  Stephan, the prickly, boundlessly arrogang German, seems a shoo-in for the arrogant guy title.  And Fabio the hilarious Italian and Jeff the cool, calculating Floridian seem like solid shots for the Mr. Competent slot.

But the Hot Babe title seems to be heading for a let-down – which is a double-shame, given the bumper-crop of fantasticality that the show stasrted with.  Of course, Lauren – the Army wife from Savannah – was the standout in the bodacity department, but she flamed out on Week 1; the other obvious frontrunner, Jill, got ejected in Week 2.  Things plateaued at a good level for several weeks – with the ever-so-cute Radhika and the very-hot-for-40 (hey, I’m 46, and you find looks where you can) Ariane holding out until mid-season.  But both the latter were ejected in consecutive weeks, right after the non-standout Melissa, leaving the show with only the plucky, overly-tattoed lipstick lesbian Jamie, the talented but bizarre Carla (who never seems to blink) and Leah, who seems to have survived primarily because the romantic tension with the cartoon-y Hosea has got to be like catnip to the producers.

So we’ll see.

As a consolation prize, it’s fun to see that Chicago’s greatest linguistic trait – the city’s natives’ facility and gusto at swearing – crosses ethnic lines; Radhika, a first-generation child of Indian immigrants,at a party for the ejected contesants,cusses with the joie de blasphématoire  of a second-generation Pole from Joliet or, perhaps, the governor.

(Not safe for audio at work…)

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 6:42 am and is filed under A 'n E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.