Why Does Project Runway Season 22 Keep Ending on Cliffhangers?

Project Runway Season 22 keeps postponing major elimination results until the following episode, but Freeform and the producers have not publicly given a specific explanation for why the season is edited this way. The most obvious purpose is episodic suspense, since withholding an elimination or save gives viewers an unresolved question heading into the next week. Episode 8 makes the strategy especially noticeable because it begins by resolving Episode 7’s unfinished result and then ends by withholding Christian Siriano’s decision between Bryan Barrientos and Jeffrey Kelly Abess. The format is not completely new, since Season 21 also carried elimination results into subsequent episodes. What is different is how repeatedly Season 22 uses the device, despite increasingly vocal criticism from longtime viewers who would rather see each challenge resolved before the credits.

Season 22 has used cliffhangers from almost the beginning

The fragmented structure appeared during the opening phase of the season, when Project Runway introduced its record group of 22 designers and immediately began cutting that field down through an unusually complicated set of eliminations and saves. Several early results were carried forward instead of being fully resolved within the same broadcast. The NFL fashion-house challenge later ended without completing its elimination, and the animal-inspired challenge also withheld the bottom result until the following week. Episode 5 again stops during the judging process, requiring Episode 6 to spend its opening minutes completing the previous challenge before it can begin the Heidi Klum assignment.

Related: Why Was Bryan Barrientos Eliminated From Project Runway Season 22?

Episode 6 briefly breaks the pattern, which is one reason viewers reacted positively when an elimination actually happened before the hour ended. The relief does not last long. Episode 7’s “Battle of the Seasons” reaches the moment when Heidi is ready to announce whether Season 21 or Season 22 won and cuts away before she says the name. Episode 8 then reveals that Season 22 won and Bi Pham earned the $20,000 prize, only to create another cliffhanger several minutes later around Christian’s save.

Episode 8 demonstrates the problem more clearly than any previous week

“Designing with the Stars” should theoretically have been one of Season 22’s cleanest self-contained episodes. The remaining designers are paired with Dancing With the Stars professionals, each receives a dance style, Jude Mikulencak wins the challenge and Heidi announces a double elimination to compensate for the previous week’s non-elimination. Bryan and Jeffrey are then selected as the two designers leaving the competition. At that point, viewers finally have a complete weekly result.

Christian immediately changes that. He reveals that he can save one of the two eliminated designers, transforming a completed double elimination into another unresolved result. Instead of announcing his choice, Project Runway ends the episode, meaning the final group advancing into the wedding challenge remains unknown for another week. The cliffhanger is therefore not created because the judges genuinely ran out of time to decide who should leave. The editing deliberately withholds a decision that Christian has already been positioned to make.

Is Project Runway doing this just to make viewers return next week?

That is the most straightforward interpretation, but it has not been officially confirmed. Television competition shows have used cliffhangers for decades because an unresolved result gives an audience a simple reason to watch the next episode. Project Runway Season 22 appears to be applying that principle to eliminations, saves and challenge results rather than limiting suspense to previews of the next assignment. The problem is that what works as a one-off surprise can become predictable when viewers know the hour may end seconds before the information they have spent the episode waiting to receive.

Christian Siriano has spoken publicly about Season 22 being designed to feel different, particularly around its record cast and aggressive early elimination structure. He has not, however, said that the repeated result delays were introduced specifically to improve ratings, streaming completion or weekly retention. There is no public evidence showing that the cliffhangers have increased viewership either. Describing them as a deliberate suspense device is reasonable based on what appears on screen, while claiming a particular business motive would go beyond what the producers have actually explained.

Fans have been complaining about the format all season

The frustration did not suddenly begin with Bryan and Jeffrey. Viewer discussions throughout Season 22 repeatedly complain that carrying the result into another week weakens the emotional payoff of each runway. Fans have pointed out that by the time the next episode arrives, they may not remember the garments, critiques or exact reason a contestant was in danger. Others say the strategy makes the beginning of each new episode feel like unfinished business instead of the start of a fresh challenge.

That criticism became particularly visible after Episode 7, when viewers had watched an entire house-versus-house challenge without learning which house had won. One fan discussion complaining about the cliffhangers attracted substantial agreement from longtime viewers who said they intended to watch every episode anyway and therefore did not need an artificial reason to return. Episode 8 immediately repeats the same frustration with Christian’s save. The response indicates that the problem is no longer simply disagreement with an individual elimination but dissatisfaction with how the show packages its weekly storytelling.

Season 21 had already introduced viewers to this style

Season 22 did not invent the delayed elimination from nothing. Season 21 also opened episodes by resolving results that had been withheld the previous week, including early eliminations that were confirmed only after the next installment began. That means viewers who disliked the structure last year entered Season 22 already sensitive to its return. Rather than abandoning the approach, the Freeform-era version of Project Runway has continued using it as part of its weekly format.

That continuity matters because it weakens the idea that Episode 8’s cliffhanger is simply an unusual response to the Siriano Save. The save is new to this particular moment, but the underlying editing philosophy is established. Results that older seasons usually treated as the emotional endpoint of an episode are now frequently being repositioned as the opening hook of the next one. The result is a season where challenges overlap narratively even when the actual design assignments are completely unrelated.

Why the format feels especially awkward on Project Runway

Project Runway depends heavily on visual memory. An elimination normally lands because viewers have just watched a designer struggle through construction, seen the garment move on the runway and listened to the judges explain why it failed. When the decision is delayed seven days, the emotional connection between critique and consequence becomes weaker. A contestant can be eliminated at the beginning of an episode just before everyone else immediately starts discussing an entirely different assignment.

That is different from a serialized drama ending before a mystery is solved, because the runway challenge has already reached its natural conclusion. The judges have evaluated the clothes and, in many cases, the decision has clearly already been filmed. Withholding the name does not extend the competition itself. It simply rearranges when the audience receives information that normally completes the story of that week’s design.

Will the cliffhangers continue through the finale?

There are only two episodes left after “Designing with the Stars,” so the format has less room to continue indefinitely. Episode 9, “Put a Ring on It,” is officially the final challenge before the finale and asks the designers to create two wedding-day looks. Episode 10 then brings the finalists to the final runway with original capsule collections. Christian’s decision between Bryan and Jeffrey therefore needs to be resolved almost immediately because Episode 9 cannot properly begin without establishing who is still competing.

Whether the wedding challenge itself ends with another delayed finalist reveal remains unknown. Nothing in Freeform’s official episode information says that it will, and the producers have not announced a change to the current editing style. What can be said now is that the repeated cliffhangers have become one of the defining characteristics of Season 22, even though they are also one of its most disliked changes. Episode 8 captures the contradiction perfectly: Project Runway finally completes one week-old cliffhanger, delivers a double elimination, and then creates another unresolved result before viewers can enjoy the closure.