In these dark, uncertain times, who knew it’s Tim Gunn’s soothing voice that will ultimately calm. Things may be rough out there right now because of this global pandemic, but at least all is well as far as fashion competition shows are concerned. Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are back together in Amazon Prime’s ‘Making the Cut’ and I suddenly realized how much miss them. I think except for a problematic season or two, I have always been a fan of Project Runway, and although I still watch and enjoy its current iteration, I found myself looking at these like old old friends, And this is a  much free and confident twosome now – they know their worth and they probably got it and all they needed to do was show up. But I am sure, they had a lot of production input here (Tim mentions that he and Heidi helped choose the contestants) and as veterans of this genre, they know exactly what works, and what they wanted to retool int heir old format. So this is a classier version of what they used to do and it shows – you can see the Amazon money of having the contestants jet immediately to Paris on everyone’s first day. They are not saddled by any kind of corporate sponsorship, and have free reign on everything. It works, and well. I found myself enthralled and by the end of the first episode I had my own favorites among the contestants (Sander, for sure) so you know the show is expertly produced (contrast that with Netflix’s ‘Next in Fashion’ where I only started to care about the contestants halfway through)  And the show is clear that it is looking for the next big brand, so there is definitely some commerce with the art here. On the first two challenges anyway, the designers are to present an ‘accesssible’ look that can be bought on Amazon right away – you can really feel them wanting to get the money they are spending. But that’s fine, as I don’t think they are keeping that fact a secret. As for the judging panel, I love Naomi Campbell already – I love every side eye and purposeful bitchy face she gives whenever she sees a garment she doesn’t like. Carinne Rotrifield, I feel, should be bitchier, and I don’t really mind Nicole Ritchie, to be honest. So you know that I will be watching for every episode of this show so you better be ready to read about it.