'Project Runway' returns to save the unicorns

* PROJECT RUNWAY. 9 p.m. today, Lifetime.

* CEDAR COVE. 8 p.m. Saturday, Hallmark Channel.

THE TRASH-TALKING, as usual, begins early.

"I like to describe myself as a force to be reckoned with," says one "Project Runway" contestant, as the Lifetime design competition returns for its 12th season tonight.

"I am definitely going to rub people the wrong way," says another. "Sorry, bitches."

TV "reality" contests are as stylized as Kabuki theater, and aggressive posturing is part of the formula, since letting one's work speak for itself takes too long.

But at 90 minutes per episode - preceded this week by an hour-long special on the contestants, "Road to the Runway," "Project Runway" has time aplenty.

In case you don't, here are a dozen things to know about Season 12:

1. One contestant is a former also-ran, chosen to return by fans. No, I can't tell you who.

2. Philly's entry is 24-year-old Dom Streater.

3. One of the contestants is deaf, which he realizes has its advantages in the workroom, where turning down his hearing aid may allow him to avoid his rivals' incessant drama.

4. Some contestants are on second careers, including one who spent eight years in the military.

5. One identifies "as a sustainability-focused fabric artist," which sounds intriguing. Until he adds, "We have to protect the forests to keep unicorns alive." Next!

6. This year's opening challenge - which I won't spoil for you, except to say that it puts the runway in "Project Runway" - has an "Amazing Race" vibe.

7. We will see even more of Tim Gunn - always a good thing - but he'll have one "American Idol"-like "save" during the season. Hoping he can make that work better than "Idol" has.

8. Zac Posen continues to be a great addition to the judges' panel: pointed but not mean, knowledgeable but not ponderous. Wait till you see him with unicorn guy.

9. Line of the premiere: "She looks like a slutty cat toy." Again, Posen.

10. Contestants have been put in charge of their budgets for the season, providing yet another opportunity for product placement.

11. Borrowing from "The Voice," "Runway" judges will not be told who designed what until they've winnowed down their choices to the top and bottom three. Contestants will continue to smile excitedly when their stuff comes down the runway, even if their designs make their models look like slutty cat toys.

12. The prize package, the largest ever, is "worth over a half-million dollars," according to host Heidi Klum. Contestants appear suitably wowed, not yet aware that the "package" includes a year's supply of spring water.

No one knows its audience better than the Hallmark Channel, whose first scripted prime-time series, "Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove," premieres Saturday.

The title's a mouthful, but Macomber, who's had three previous books adapted by Hallmark for high-rated Christmas movies, is to small-town warm and fuzzy what Stephen King is to small-town weird and scuzzy. Her name's bound to draw fans.

I'm a hard-core drama junkie who's never read one of Macomber's books, and even I could see the appeal of "Cedar Cove," which stars Andie MacDowell as a small-town judge and Dylan Neal as a newspaperman from Philly who's now running the local paper.

In Saturday's two-hour premiere - originally written as a movie by Philadelphia playwright Bruce Graham, a co-executive producer on the show - MacDowell's character, Olivia, is considering a big promotion that would take her away from the postcard-perfect Pacific Northwest town where she was born and raised and has been dispensing justice for years (and where her mother, daughter and that cute guy from the paper still live).

If you've seen even one Hallmark movie, you know how that turns out. But while those movies are often forced to rush headlong toward their happy endings, a series can take more time. And in four subsequent episodes I've seen, the stories and characters get to breathe a bit.

MacDowell, whose fashion-diva character was one of my favorite things about ABC Family's "Jane By Design," is playing someone more sympathetic here, but her Olivia's just headstrong enough to stay interesting.

And the move to "Cedar Cove" - a far safer place than Cabot Cove, of "Murder, She Wrote" - feels like a smart bet for Hallmark.