Ten months after the previous season aired, Project Runway returns from legal limbo with a new network (Lifetime instead of Bravo) and a new city. The show appears to have remained nearly identical, from what I gather. I can't really speak for how Los Angeles compares to the show's former New York home, but as nearly the entire show takes place indoors, I don't imagine that the switch will have a huge impact. But the new locale does mean that the contestants get challenges like tonight's, centered around designing a red carpet look that shows off their own unique design sensibility. The red- carpet challenge also lead to possibly my favorite quote of the night, courtesy of androgynous designer Malvin when he said, "I don't differentiate between different colors of carpets."

As is the case with most reality shows, the first episode was a bit overwhelming and a slog to get through in terms of the sheer number of designers, and attempting to determine who's going to be in the competition for the long haul. One great way to stand out from the pack, however, is to immediately have a meltdown after being assigned your first task, as former crystal meth addict Johnny chose to do. I sympathized with him; after all, it can't be easy trying to turn your life around after facing down a devastating addiction. That said, dear lord, producers! How long has the poor guy been sober, three days? I shudder to think how he's going to handle getting kicked off the show, should the time come. I also had tragic scenarios running through my head of runway critiques gone horribly awry: "Who designed this dress, a meth addict?" Luckily, therapist Tim single-handedly brought Johnny back from the brink with a fashion pep talk ("Make it work, Johnny!"). I'm assuming this inspirational session was typical of a Project Runway episode, and not a strategy to appeal to the usual Lifetime viewers who are expecting this sort of thing (thankfully, the show did refrain from tossing in subplots tackling domestic abuse, child abduction, and addiction to Internet pornography), but it's hard to tell.

The only other major drama in the episode came from Mitchell, who got the measurements of his model wrong, forcing him to scrap his (sort of hideous) Victorian dress and haphazardly whip together a sheer, billowy nightgown with the former dress's neck piece sewn on for good measure.

I was anticipating more time devoted to watching the designers creative processes, but after much too short a time, we were on to the runway critique, presided over by judges Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and special guest judge Lindsay Lohan (who, despite looking like her usual wreck, actually had some insightful comments). Shirin, Epperson, Gordana, Carol, Logan, Althea, Nicolas, Irina, Malvin, and Louise all presented decent, if unremarkable, designs that the judges deemed adequate, thus making them safe for this week.

The bottom three designs came from Qristyl, who presented a half slinky lavender gown/half short floral summer dress that looked sloppy and, as Michael correctly noted, appeared as if she simply stitched two different designs together. Mitchell's "unwearable" Victorian nightgown monstrosity was ultimately saved because Nina thought it had "an attitude". The worst design of the week by far went to Ari's disco soccer ball/geodesic dome cocktail dress which she described as being appropriate both for attending the VMA's and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm pretty sure that's just about the moment the judges decided that it was time for her to start packing her bags. Honestly, as god awful as I thought that dress was, I figured the judges would keep her around just to mix things up this season, though my roommate rationalized the judges' decision by wisely noting that, while you can recover from a mistake, there's no recovering from CRAZY.

All three judges loved Jeffrey's red, 1920's-inspired gown, though I thought the shape was odd and did nothing to flatter his model. They also praised Ra'mon's sleek, classic-looking dress while noting that he may have played it a little safe. I was immensely pleased to see that the winner of the red-carpet challenge was Christopher, who was a quick favorite of mine, and not (only) because he's adorable. His ruffley cocktail dress struck a nice balance between elegant and edgy, a feat that's all the more impressive considering that he's received no formal training and his design skills are entirely self-taught.

Random question: is Heidi Klum always so terrifying? Because I think if I had to stand there while she marched around and announced who is IN and who is OUT, I would wet myself. Who knew a model could be so intense? Also, it may be wrong, but I'm seriously hoping Qristyl goes home next, if only because spelling her name is going to give me an aneurysm.