'Runway' under wraps

 

We're still in the thick of "Top Chef: Creole-Flavored Finale" and there's trash TV like "Millionaire Matchmaker" and "Real Housewives," so we should be content with Bravo's reality output.

But we miss "Project Runway," even though the last season of the Emmy-nominated Peabody-winning series was definitely not its finest hour. (Picking four finalists just so Designated Heel Kenley Collins could stay until the bitter end? We all saw that for the con job/ratings grab it was).

Ongoing legal grapplings between Bravo, show producer the Weinstein Co., and its purported new home Lifetime have stalled Season 6. That is, it's stalled the scheduling of season six. It's been taped already, with Los Angeles as the backdrop, and its three finalists sent their designs down the runway today at Bryant Park during Fashion Week in New York.

So the finale's in the can. But the designers themselves had to be kept in the shadows, lest it ruin the entire unaired season for the fans. Heidi, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and, of course, the beloved Tim Gunn were front and center, but necessarily vague, during the event.

It's always a surprise when any secret is kept secret these days (see the announcements of Robert Pattinson, Miley Cyrus and other teen-pandering appearances at this weekend's Oscar ceremony, when it was all supposed to be so hush hush). But the worldwide coverage of Fashion Week would seem to preclude any scrap of undisclosed information.

We just say, figure it out, you litigants, and get the show back on the road.