And the extra dosage: Feel Hud's pain as he is ruthlessly mocked by Grove and EIC Michael Cooke for wearing flip-flops. Bonus mockery when Grove brings up Cooke's rumored foot fetish.

We've said it before, but we are simply ill-equipped to run with the stallions competing for coverage of Bravo's Daily News docu-series Tabloid Wars. Paralyzed by our love for deputy metro meatbaton Greg Gittrich and slow at the keyboard thanks to various, unrelated medications, there's just no way our treatment of this "story" would ever satisfy the show's 2,000 die-hard fans. So instead, we rededicate our energy not to liveblogging the show, but liveblogging FishbowlNY editor Dylan Stableford's conscientious liveblog coverage of the show. After the jump, we watch Dylan watch.

For Project Runway watchers, last night was the moment of truth (spoiler ahead): It was indeed shifty judge-favorite Keith Michael who was pre-emptively ejected from the competition, not for, as eagle-eyed watchers deduced, copying designs in his portfolio, but for the far more brazen offense of keeping fashion how-to books lying around. Tim Gunn got so choked up making the announcement to the remaining contestants the following day, he could only manage a barely coherent sentiment consisting entirely of his own, strung-together catchphrases. ("So carry on, and, as we say, 'make it work.' Where's Andrae? I'm concerned...")

Yesterday's bombshell announcement from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Jai Rodriguez that the series had not been "asked back for 2007" had so shaken TMZ.com with visions of a planet being hurled headlong into canape-less, white-socks-with-black-dress-shoes anarchy, that they went directly to Bravo for confirmation:

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Jai Rodriguez is the Fab Fiver whose area of expertise is... um, well, we're not exactly sure, but it involves taking the straight guys aside for heart-to-heart talks in which he advises them to take up swing-dancing lessons. He recently sat down for a surprisingly frank interview with AfterElton.com, revealing that the hit reality series would soon be szhuzhing no more:

We know our limitations, and on a sweaty Monday night viewing of Tabloid Wars, we're going to be rendered useless (more so than usual) by our love for Daily News deputy metro meatstud Greg Gittrich (more on him later). We're not capable of much, then, other than drooling at the screen and fantasizing about life as Gittrich's "hard" news fluffer. In general, our lustful paralysis means that we simply cannot keep up with FishbowlNY's vigilant live-blogging of the show as it unfolds. So instead we present you with our liveblog of Fishbowl editor Dylan Stableford's Tabloid Wars liveblog. After the jump, soak up the meta.

Not being particularly fluent in ratings gibberish, we can at least tell you that P+2 is the important part in the above television ratings chart: it represents persons 2-years-old and up (all viewers, basically). Thus for the Monday night debut of Bravo's Daily News docu-whatever Tabloid Wars, only 240,000 people tuned in — and that's an absolute tragedy. We expected better, really. Does this mean that no one outside of New York cares about the inner workings of our local media? What, like we're living in some kind of bubble? No way. The adorable allure of deputy metro lovemonkey Greg Gittrich is universal.

If there's one thing the past few days have shown us, it's that the best way to revive the increasingly troglodytic newspaper industry is by putting newspapers on television. And now that the hardcore reporters at the Daily News are on the small screen with Bravo's docu-series Tabloid Wars, all the lazy small screen reporters suddenly give a shit about newsprint. Thus the Today show has been scuttling around the News offices for the past couple of hours, with entertainment correspondent Jill Rappaport shoving her formidable chin into everybody's business. A flakey news show covering a reality show about a legitimate news operation? Our blood sugar is too low to handle this sort of meta.

In our quest to learn everything we can about the shining star of Tabloid Wars, the Daily News's deputy metro muffin Greg Gittrich, we've assembled the following unverified information (and are still looking for more details if you've got 'em):

Having already seen the first episode and read countless reviews of Bravo's Tabloid Wars, the docu-series focusing on the journalistic drama hive that is the Daily News, we were all excited to write some sort of live-blog or insightful review of last night's premiere. But alas, there's only so much one can say when every. freaking. media. outlet. has hyped the show beyond proportion (ourselves included), leaving room for no new conclusions or original insights — other than that the handsome visage of Deputy Metro editor Greg Gittrich shall forevermore grace our bedroom walls. Forget the show's other standout individuals, and let it now be declared: Gittrich is this town's official Working Class Hottie.

Tonight's the night you've been waiting for: at 9 PM, Bravo will unveil its riveting Daily News docu-series, Tabloid Wars. Much has been made of the appearance of gossipista Lloyd Grove's then-fluffer Hud Morgan (who has since fled to Men's Vogue), a lad whose wit and wisdom elevates the show to Emmy-worthy levels. Like manna from heaven, we've been blessed with a clip of Hud doing what he does best: covering a party, during which he asks a woman, "Can you get me a beer, because I'm such a man?" (Bet that goes over swimmingly at Conde.) As for actual gossip reporting, when Adrian Grenier tells Hud to do something that contributes to the greater good, our man gets philosophical and asks, "Why?" Indeed, dude. Indeed.

Considering that the Daily News' Bravo docu-series Tabloid Wars isn't exactly a serial effort (each episode being relatively self-contained and independent of those prior), we're not really sure running an episode guide counts as a "spoiler," but if you're one of those types who gets panties a-bunched over such things, you're thus warned. Bravo has released a guide to the six-episode series: it would seem that the plaintive cries and philosophical musings of gossip sloth Lloyd Grove's then-stringer Hud Morgan are mostly in the second episode (July 31), when he's "charged with hunting down the hottest stars at New York's nighttime hotspots." How glamorous!

Promos for upcoming episodes of Project Runway hint at a controversy to come, in which Tim Gunn alludes to a crime of fashion so unforgivable that it leads to the unprecedented expulsion of a contestant from the series. It's precisely the kind of mystery best suited for the communal detective work of the internets: A tip on Television Without Pity accusing last week's challenge winner Keith Michael of having stolen several designs in his audition portfolio led commenters of bulletin board the Fashion Spot to do some digging. Amazingly, what emerged was that the thieving designer was also a lazy one: Michael's sketches are almost exact copies of the original runway photos lifted off fashion sites such as Style.com and Elle.com.

Project Runway's third season premiered last night with yet another colorful assortment of fashion weirdos to delight and amaze us while torturing each other. (We particularly warmed to Malan, the performer/designer who, if the fashion thing doesn't pan out, has a long, illustrious career ahead of him playing really gay vampires and snooty maitre d's.) The models were assigned without much fanfare, however, and we can only hope future episodes will go back to subjecting them to the amusing, white-T-shirted-slave auctions of seasons past. According to the NY Daily News, one model lucky enough to make it to the final three (and thus revealing her identity is a SPOILER—you've been warned), found her good luck to be cut short when she found herself sporting the front end of a speeding bus:

Watchers of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List know that the annoying comic's marriage to her ineffectual, alfalfa-male husband Matt Moline has been on the rocks for a while now. Griffin often mentions that the two are "working things out," which invariably gets a huge response from her adoring audiences, composed mostly of gay men who will laugh at anything if it's said loudly enough. According to an interview she recently gave to Larry King (which has yet to air), however, things aren't looking good:

Bravo managed to take all the elements that worked so well for Project Runway, and reapply them to the world of food for Top Chef. Aspiring designers becamed cooks, dresses became dishes, runways became table tops, and robotic host Heidi Klum became robotic host Katie Lee Joel, Billy Joel's lovely daughter wife. And while Klum's stiffly delivered challenge instructions and "auf wiedersehen" contestant kiss-offs somehow always worked for Runway, Joel never quite managed to muster the spice required from a host of a dishy, backstabbing series set almost entirely in the kitchen. The Televisionary blog now reports that she won't be coming around for second helpings:

You have just over one month to prepare for the most life-changing television experience ever: Bravo's Tabloid Wars premieres on July 24, and we suggest you start building up your tolerance now, because this show promises to be the most worthy drinking game opportunity since the State of the Union. Taped last summer and billed as a "docu-series," the show follows reporters from the Daily News as they go about the business of reporting news and breaking stories — plus, we know the cameras caught Lloyd Grove's then-assistant Hud Morgan on the phone, campaigning for Gawker Hottie nominations. Surely that sort of journalistic intensity wouldn't end up on the cutting room floor.

Project Runway dandy and Andrae-whereabouts inquisitor Tim Gunn blogs up a storm on his little corner of the BravoTV.com universe, with his most recent entry devoting an economical 25,000 words to the auditions for the show's third season. Like his on-screen persona, his effete prose is packed with delightful flourishes ("I was anticipating The Great Santino, full of boisterous bravura..."), and offers Runway junkies a taste of what's to come—and what isn't:

It's been too long since last we checked in with Andy's Blog, Bravo network executive Andy Cohen's little name-droppy, oversharing corner of the blogosphere. Sadly, there were no further celebrity psychoanalytical word games, though Harry Connick, Jr. does get a rave review in his starring role in The Pajama Game revival on Broadway, followed of course by the requisite backstage introduction ("He was all Southern Charm.") We must admit, though, we were thrown a bit when Cohen went on to talk about a recent car purchase, in which he partook in some unabashed homo self-loathing in the hopes of netting nothing more than a good deal on the deluxe leather interior package:

Though Rasputin-turned-teddy-bear Santino Rice had a nice run and his eerily accurate impersonations were the most memorable thing in the show's second season, this year's breakout Project Runway personality was clearly Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum's whip-cracking lieutenant. A reader tips us that the network's corporate powers-that-be seem to have taken note of Gunn's budding, basic cable stardom: