This was supposed to be the most fabulous Project Runway ever. Take 11 designers, 11 drag queens and the urbane Tim Gunn, sprinkle in a little Chris March pixie dust, and poof! Magic. sadly, while this group is distinguishing itself with the sniping and the delusional thinking, they're not distinguishing themselves where it really should count: with talent and innovation and an eye for beauty.

We are spared a meaningless model elimination at least, so there's that.

So, what did we learn about this still-too-big-to-keep-track-of group of designers this week?

Terri loves drag queens. No idea why, she just does. Honey, that is so street of you!

Joe starts out mighty uncomfortable with this challenge...because he's straight damnit!...but by the end he's prancing around in a bra with rather tremendous falsies inserted. Hmm.

Daniel continues to confuse fearful and dull restraint with "impeccable taste". As Inigo Montoya would say: I do not think that word means what you think it means.

The producers realized that they have clearly over-dosed us on Kenley, her obnoxious laugh and her own weird delusion that imitating Bettie Page is in any way visionary in 2008...so we saw very little of her.

We also saw little of Korto, and absolutely none of Leanne...who I keep thinking got eliminated a couple of weeks ago, but no. That was the other one. Jenniferzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Stella has realized that talking smack will get her more face time (like we needed that!) so she starts dissing the others, notably Blayne...who "knows nothin'"

Blayne is in neon heaven.

Jerell is growing on me, which is quite unexpected.

Keith will now be known as The Fringe King, much as last season Rami was known as The Draping King.

Perhaps strangest of all: Suede sees dead people. And feels free to share his hallucinationsof his dead grandpa with us all. He also channels last season's Angela by going rosette-crazy. Only they're not rosettes, they're mini green heads of lettuce. Or something.

Oh and by the way...the whole Suede in the third person thing? Completely gone. Which reminds me of a scene in the Cameron Crowe movie Singles (an underrated gem, trust me.) Matt Dillon's dim grunge rocker character Cliff reminisces to Bridget Fonda (what happened to her? She was adorable) about the house he grew up in which was right in the flight path of the airport. The noise of the planes ruined everything...no one wanted to come to his house for summer BBQs, for example. But once he moved away he found he missed the noise of the planes. Cliff compares Fonda's character to those planes. It's a most unorthodox way of telling someone you love them, that's for sure. Now, I may not love Suede, but I do think his third person self-referencing is like those planes. Now that they're gone, I miss them.

But i digress...on to the runway show.

All designs can be seen at the Bravo episode photo gallery here.

1. Kenley and her drag queen, Farrah Moans

Kenley, predictably, channeled the 50's and Marilyn Monroe (granted, so does her drag queen.) This was a verrrry basic silver lame long sheath dress, and about all the drama she added was big black and white feathers around the shoulders. (I think they've done some feather fluffing in the shot in the gallery above...it looked a lot less full on the show.) I thought it was a little basic, and a lot unimaginative.

2. Blayne and his drag queen, Miss Understood

Blayne went for a fuschia and turquoise cartoony color-blocked jester look. It was like the 80s exploded all over poor Miss Understood, and then yes, according to Tim Gunn's oft-shown clip, a pterodactyl form a gay Jurassic Park came sat on her shoulders and spread its wings. But sadly one of the wings was broken and drooping rather obviously. I thought it was pretty egregious personally, but at least it was living out loud, if you know what I mean.

3. Joe and his drag queen, Varla Jean Merman

Like I said above, Joe got over his initial discomfort pretty quickly, and came up with a bubblegum pink "Ann Margaret on the Love Boat" sailor jumpsuit for his queen. Complete with "candy-hiding" low slung belt. The fit was skin tight, but tasteful, if that' possible. Score one for the straight guy.

4. Stella and her drag queen, Luisa Verde

Stella concocted a Vivenne Westwood punk meets Big Country 80s Scottish band resurgence. It was a long black dress with tartan insets fastened with big hook and eye fasteners. It was relatively innocuous, which was both its strength and weakness.

5. Suede and his drag queen, Hedda Lettuce

Although Hedda gave our Suede a hard time about this outfit (and the lettuce-enhanced gloves) in the end Hedda seemed to love this green (and very short-skirted) suit. The cut of the the jacket really enhanced Hedda's hourglass figure. Was the outfit incredibly outlandish? No, which is probably why Suede was not to be in the top 3.

6. Daniel and his drag queen, Annida Greenkard

Daniel created a regular old evening gown of orange, yellow and pink chiffon. The top was a halter, the skirt was tiers of chiffon, and Daniel's one nod to the fact that these were drag queens looking for costumes, not socialites looking for a gown for a benefit, was a humongous flower in Annida's humongous hair. Bo. Ring.

7. Terri and her drag queen, Acid Betty

Acid Bety looks to be a rather avant garde drag queen, and looking feminine and glamorous isn't on the top of her list. Terri went along with that aesthetic with an outfit that threw in a lot of different elements: A kimono-style top with huge sleeves with blue and silver stripes, a red rubber corset, lots of ribbons hanging off it, different-colored boots and more. It's a real hodge-podge, and I did not like it.

8. Jerell and his drag queen, LeMay

This was a rather tasteful citron and midnight swoosh striped sequin cocktail dress with fringe around the hem (but nice, neat fringe, not messy toilet paper fringe a la Keith) and a green pop-up puffy portrait collar to "frame her face." She seemed way more concerned about it hiding her face, but she needs to trust the designer in this case. I thought this was well-done personally.

9. Korto and her drag queen, Sweetie

Korto did indeed go for the gusto on this one with a flame-red, one-sleeved, short red sequin dress, accessorized with a removable red hoop skirt and featuring some interesting flame-like pieces protruding form the neckline. This was one of the few that really looked like the kind of drag gown we all know and love...don't we?

10. Keith and his drag queen, Sherry Vine

Can this guy be sent home soon, please? You have high-waisted silver lame shorts, a black bikini top and then lots and lots of, you guessed it, randomly applied black and white fringy strips of crappy scraps. But let me tell you how I really feel.

11. Leanne and her drag queen, Sharon Needles

having forgotten Leanne even existed, I was quite surprised when there was one more model/design to go after Keith's. Hers was a short black dress with a black and silver Cruella DeVille collar, and a black and turquoise multi-panelled skirt. She tried to hit the over-the-top-ness being sought, but she didn't really hit the drag-queen-ness.

The judges loves them some:
Joe
Korto
Terri

And hates them some:
Daniel
Keith
Jerell

I'm surprised to see Terri there, because I thought her oufit was one hot tranny mess, but not in a good way. I'm surprised to see Jerell there, since there were others equally boring, but less well-made.

Joe ends up being the winner, a triumph of overcoming the inherent limitations of being the straight one damnit!

Jerell is safe, leaving the Aufing to either Keith or Daniel. I honestly can't decide which one most serves to go home, since they're both insufferable.

In the end Daniel is auf'ed for being boring, as is so often Project Runway's wont. Can't complain, but i hope Keith might be next.

What did you think?