Liz! I’ve had a few beers!

First, a confession. I have occasionally watched this show with an impure heart. There have been contestants in the past whose presence I enjoyed not so much due to their personalities, but because I thought they were fine as hell. Unfortunately I’m just not into any of these All Star girls. I guess maybe Allison, but that’s more because I just like her personality, and that doesn’t really count. I don’t know if you’ve objectified many women, Liz, but imagining them as real people with inner lives totally ruins it. Now back to the action!

We begin with Allison confessing to Lisa (of all people) about how she feels more nervous this cycle than her last one. She sits in a confessional saying how hard it is for her to make friends. She does this entire confessional in some sort of kitty cat headgear. I love Allison and I will fight anyone who doesn’t. Read the rest of this entry →

Liz! Makeovers!

But first, a correction from last week. In my general enthusiasm for Allison Harvard (even her name is great!), I said that her nickname was “Bloody Eyeball”. Not true! That nickname actually belongs to Short Cycle winner Nicole (who I also adored). Allison did not have a bloody eyeball, she was just fascinated by blood. An easy mistake to make, I’m sure you, and hopefully your audience, will agree. I don’t want to get hated on about this, Liz. Not over this.

Now on to this week’s episode, which was something else. Isis got first picture last week, did I mention that? Well, it’s true. Alexandria interviews that the audience hates her. The girls decide to play dress up (Allison is a kitty cat), but are interrupted by Tyra and a small goblin man with an indeterminate accent. Tyra introduces him as Martin Lindstrom, a “brand strategist genius”. He did some polling about the girls (what?) and is here to present them with a branding word they should use to represent themselves for this episode (and possibly the whole cycle, this was not clear). Liz, at the risk of hyperbole, Martin Lindstrom is a horrible little goblin man and he is everything that’s wrong with America. Read the rest of this entry →

Liz,

Okay, so here we all are. It’s the All Stars cycle of Top Model, but before we get started, let me give you a brief history of my experience with this batshit show.

Back in the fall of ’03, my roommate and I lived a life of solitude and we’d watch basically anything on TV, including the new modeling competition on the UPN network. We each picked a favorite girl and vowed we’d stop watching as soon as our picks were eliminated. My roommate picked brainy Elyse while I chose goofy wild-child Adrianne. We figured we’d watch for three weeks, tops. Much to our surprise, Elyse wound up finishing third overall while Adrianne actually won the thing. Plus the season turned out to be a minor reality show masterpiece. Who knew? Still, I skipped out on the next cycle and didn’t wind up watching the show again until Cycle 5, which was another gem. And I’ve been with the show ever since, to increasingly diminishing returns. Seriously, the last few cycles have been a snooze.

But now we’ve got ALL STARS, which should prove a bit more diverting, at the very least. Although this first episode didn’t give me much hope. To war!

We open the only way we possibly could – with an insane Tyra sketch. Tyra sleeps peacefully (in a log cabin!) until she is haunted by visions of herself doing terrible impressions of contestants past. And then suddenly the girls are there! In her bed! Yelling and being awful! So Tyra wakes, scream/sobbing “All right! I’ll do it! I’ll do an All Star Cycle!”

I think this sketch confirms what we’ve always known to be true: Tyra hates these girls. Obviously. I mean, each cycle brings a new challenge which borders on torture. The first challenge last cycle saw the girls being criticized for being unable to walk across water in inflatable hamster balls. That’s like holding someone’s head under water and yelling “Stop drowning!” Read the rest of this entry →