I’ve been an avid fan of reality TV for longer than I’ve known what it was called. My obsession started around age eight or nine with the “Great British Bake Off” and later expanded to include “Britain’s Got Talent” and “Dance Moms.” As a ballet-obsessed child who was still adjusting to American life after spending her first six years in England, it’s probably not surprising that I found solace in these shows. It was exciting to watch real people experience things that I understood in a glamorized, heightened setting. It was oddly comforting to relate to people whose lives were so public – to feel like I knew these people in a way that I couldn’t really know a fictional character. They all felt so real to me.
Then I became a teenager and traded “Britain’s Got Talent” for “Project Runway.” I started with the show’s humble beginnings and worked my way through the seasons, slowly moving from fuzzy camera filters to 1080p HD videos. Alongside an increase in technical quality came an increase in overproduced narratives (or at least ones that were more blatant). The carefully curated depictions of each contestant became more seamless and more predictable as complex personalities were reduced to easy-to-follow storylines.
Enjoying reality TV no longer works unless we recognize that the people we see are not truly real. Gone are the challenges that gave contestants more than 24 hours to create a high-fashion look and the judging decisions that prioritized their quality of work. Now we, as an audience, watch designers make less-creative garments under insane time constraints while judges factor contestant drama into their elimination decisions. A 2024 article from the Crimson White detailed the journey of reality TV from its early unfiltered personalities to manufactured drama, where “the lines between fact and fiction are intentionally blurred.” We as viewers are no longer meant to see reality in what we watch, but instead a sort of parody.
I do think that parodying life can work in instances where the show is clearly designed for it. The “Real Housewives” franchise and the more recent “House of Villains” are examples of overly-manipulated narratives that work. For shows where you tune in specifically for drama, I don’t mind that it’s a bit curated. But for shows that started with an entirely different purpose, the end result of overproduction will just never be satisfying.
So why are shows like “Project Runway” leaning away from their original intentions? I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are currently greatly underestimated in our capacity to enjoy narratives that aren’t easy. It’s assumed that in our brain-rotted age, we won’t have the attention spans to enjoy anything that isn’t fed to us in the most reductionistic ways possible. And maybe, when we treat TV shows as background noise while we scroll on our phones, we’re proving that there’s truth to that belief. But I’m not convinced.
Look at any social media discussions of the latest season of the show, and you’ll see that I’m far from alone in my criticism. Plenty of fans voiced frustration with challenges that aimed for pressure-cooker stress instead of innovative creations, judges that focused more on catty catchphrases than garment critiques and the lack of screentime given to talented designers because they didn’t start fights. A 2025 article by Parade titled “Why ‘Project Runway’ Fans Hate the New Season” featured a fan reaction that summed it up, saying: “It’s turned into Real Housewives of the Runway.” With calls for the show to return to its roots, to the early seasons that are deemed “the most iconic,” fans are proving that there is still a widespread desire for the “reality” aspect of “reality TV.”
There’s a reason why both the “Great British Bake Off” and the “Real Housewives” can both work as reality shows. Both know their purpose and, for the most part, stick with it. There is room for both “trashy drama” shows and shows that focus on skills. If “Project Runway” ever wants to thrive again, it needs to return to what it originally was: “a show more interested in the work than the drama,” according to a 2019 Smithsonian magazine article. There is a clear blueprint for successful versions of work-focused reality TV. If older reality shows can’t find it again, then it’s time for it to move aside for fresh, on-brand shows.
