America’s Next Top Best Friend
I know a lot of folks view reality shows in general as something of a guilty pleasure. Perhaps the guiltiest of all is America’s Next Top Model, which is sort of like watching a train just fail to wreck every week.
The premise sounds like a recipe for disaster — 13 young girls get taken under Tyra Banks’ wing and are guided through an audition and training/challenge process on their way to a contract with CoverGirl and Ford Models — but after a boring season or two (which Jenn watched alone), the show really found its way, and is pretty entertaining.
The girls are a mix of viable models who would have likely succeeded anyway (like this season’s runner-up Joanie) and lunatics who seem to be there as much for the reality show drama factor as anything else (like psycho know-it-all Jade, who insisted that she was a great undiscovered talent whom the industry had simply failed to notice, despite her living in New York City and trying to break in for almost a decade).
The lunatics, of course, are what make it really entertaining (OK, the lunatics and the girls flirting with lesbianism), and Jade gave me and Jenn our name for the show forevermore, when she explained it wasn’t necessary for her not to be a froth-at-the-mouth bitch, because the show was not called America’s Next Top Best Friend. Classic.
It’ll be a long summer without it.
(And yes, Jason, this is why I don’t watch the multiple Emmy award-winning Amazing Race. Sorry!)
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The amazing race annoys the hell out of me, but I have the good sense to turn the tv off!
Comment by Nicole — May 19, 2006 @ 7:34
I don’t know if you guys get any Canadian channels down there, but if you do, there’s always Canada’s Top Model, which starts at the end of the month. No Tyra–it’s being hosted by some Canadian chick I’ve never heard of, Tricia somebody–but otherwise the show appears to be identical, with the same production team behind it.
Comment by Stephen — May 19, 2006 @ 18:41
I think that nobody model is the semi-imaginary Cylon chick who badgers (among other things) Baltar in the modern Battlestar Galactica series.
But no, no Canadian television down here. It’d be interesting to see as an option on American cable stations, though.
Comment by Beau — May 19, 2006 @ 18:44
When I first heard about the show, I thought it’d be a bunch of vain girls talking about how pretty they are and how they should be the winner. I think the show debuted in the summer when nothing else was on, which is why I ended up watching it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was a business, not a beauty contest. Girls who were better looking got eliminated simply because they looked emotionally dead in photographs. Girls who looked pretty average would transform before our eyes and really bring their game. I couldn’t believe the difference and it’s not always easy to predict who will win the whole thing because it changes every week.
My favorite episode every season and one that I won’t miss is when they get their make-overs. Nothing drives home the point of modeling being a business and that you are there to sell whatever image the client wants better than telling a vain girl that she must cut off her long hair and get it cut as short as Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby.” It’s broken quite a few self-absorbed girls this way (one actually quit!) and boy, is it fun to watch. Fun, fun, fuuuuuuun!!
Tyra does a really good job of being likable and funny yet remaining firm when it comes to telling the girls why they’re in the bottom two. I just saw her as a Victoria’s Secret model before the show, but I really respect her as a strong business woman now.
Comment by Jennifer — May 20, 2006 @ 15:21