Tyra's back, and of course, she's bringing the crazy. For this unbelievable thirteenth cycle (like, seriously can you imagine this show ending?) Tyra has opened up the doors to aspiring young models shorter than 5'7". This is a bit of a stretch considering even the tall winners of ANTM have only seen limited, scattered success, but there's no contradicting Tyra.
Even though it's 'Le Cycle 13,' the general formula of the show is mostly unchanged with the exception of the shorter girls' inclusion. Oh, and Paulina Porizkova is gone. She'll be replaced by a different guest judge every week. Paulina was kind of weird and annoying, and new guest judges are more exciting besides. So, not exactly 'good riddance' but you won't actually 'be missed' either.
As is typical, the premiere ran for two hours with the 14 finalists selected at the end of the first hour. But the first hour of a season of ANTM is like the auditions for American Idol. Pure comedy. Amber, possibly the most insane, hilarious girl I've even seen on the show actually made it through to the final 14, but as she probably is actually insane, she dropped out shortly after, replaced by a Mila Kunis wannabe (who ended up the first girl to get the boot). It was actually sad seeing all the girls eliminated this time around. You know they're so short that this was really a one-shot opportunity... Oh, well!
The biggest difference in this cycle in my opinion isn't the girls' height but how gorgeous so many of them are. Sure, it's a modeling competition and there are always a couple girls in every cycle that are beautiful but I spent most of last night saying "She's so pretty..." That or "Wow, this bitch is crazy!"Usually I'm squinting at the screen trying to see what Tyra is seeing, but all the girls look like models this time around and the vast majority are breathtaking on film. It's one of the best bunches she's gotten together. My only issue is Bianca. Damn, did we really need another bald, black bitch?? Nnenna and Sandra and now this chick. These girls don't love themselves, they're insecurities are plain as day. Giving dark-skinned girls a bad name.
As this is the thirteenth cycle, I'm sure you know by know whether you like ANTM or not. I can only tell you that this season stands up to the ones that came before it, and has the potential to be even better. Instead of the bitchy catfights to come, I'm actually looking forward to seeing these gorgeous girls compete. Pictured above are the girls I think have the most potential. Agree? Glee and ANTM Wednesdays for me, yeee.
Will you be watching Top Model this season?? Which girls do you like the best?? Sound off! Leave a comment.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
TV Review: Cycle 13: Smaller Girls, Bigger Crazy
TV Review: Oh Em Glee
Glee. Is. Amazing.
Because of all the hype surrounding this show since the pilot episode aired a few months back, I decided to wait for the series' proper premiere to watch the show. I mean, why suffer all summer? Turns out I was (unusually) prescient in this instance; I couldn't imagine waiting three months to see the next episode!
Glee had me laughing out loud from start to finish. The humor is quick, biting, and relentless. There was much garbling about stereotypical, unoriginal characters after the pilot aired, but while the social hierarchy of the students may be archetypal, I have never seen these characters before. The satire turns everyone inside out, and while you think you know what roles these characters will play, it's wildly entertaining to watch them surprise you over and over again.
If this ensemble cast has a main character, it's Will, the hot Spanish teacher who becomes Glee Club director, played by Matthew Morrison. The show shuffles back and forth between his home life with his demanding, conniving wife and his school life concerning his relations with the rest of the staff and his Glee students. Rachel, played by Lea Michele, is the leader of Glee Club, passionately devoted to her craft and developing her talent, and the object of ridicule for the competing cheerleading squad and the football team. The rest of the Glee Club is made up of Finn, a conflicted jock with a big voice, Mercedes, a black R&B diva with a bigger voice (she is "Beyoncé, not Kelly Rowland!"), Kurt, a flamboyant, headstrong tenor in fierce designer fashions, Tina, an Asian goth chick with a stutter, and finally, the paraplegic Artie. It took me a while to place him, but I finally realized that Artie is played by Kevin from NLT(!!). You can't fool me with those glasses and that wheelchair, Kevin. I still see all that fine.
Of course, I expected the show to focus mainly on the kids, their hilarious antics and awesome talent. So I was a tad nervous to discover that it was mainly narrated around Will's point of view. Like, if there's one thing I couldn't stand about Degrassi, it was all the plotlines surrounding the adults. Who really cares about Spike and Snake's marriage? Not me. But, Will, again, is super hot, and Emma, the guidance counselor who holds a candle for married Will is so cute with her mysophobia. Not to mention, Sue, played by the superb Jane Lynch. She absolutely steals every single scene she's in. Brilliantly funny.
Now, brace yourself for the cheesy part. There's no better title for the show than Glee. As bitchy as everyone and despite all the facades the characters put up, the show manages to be incredibly heartwarming at times. This is, in large part, thanks to the music. There are three or four numbers per episode and it's really when everything clicks and comes together. Possibly my favorite thing about the show is how positive the message is about the arts without being preachy or uncool. All the kids in Glee Club are committing social suicide but they do it because they love it. And while we're on the subject of the music, Mercedes took Kanye's Gold Digger to church last night and Rachel straight-up killed Rihanna's Take A Bow. She reminds me of a mini Idina Menzel. I can potentially see that dancing and singing along with a sitcom is not everyone's thing. But it's a dream come true for me.
All in all, I can't recommend Glee enough. I loved every minute of it. The cast is extremely talented, the writing fresh and inventive, and the music phenomenal. There's no where else you should be on Wednesday nights.
Oh Em Glee, did you love it too?? Or do you think it's just a stupid musical pretending to be a sitcom?? Sound off! Leave a comment.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
TV Review: Melrose Place is AWFUL...ly good... Who knew?
The series premiere of the revamped Melrose Place aired tonight and color me surprised when 5 minutes in I didn't want to shoot myself and 20 minutes in I was actually into it. MP was not nearly as lame as I expected it to be. While that's normally a snide, queeny judgment, this time it's actually a compliment!
The CW has the 90210 kiddies with the emotional ranges of 8-year-olds, and it has the Gossip Girl socialites who are clearly grown up but restricted by the limitations of their high school roles. But, Melrose Place may just be what the CW has been missing: an adult drama. There's nothing holding the characters in MP back from taking it to the next level, and judging from the premiere, they won't disappoint.
First off, let me get it out of the way and say that everyone is hot. Duh, it's the CW. The show began with a half-naked Michael Rady (hence my rapt attention) who is ridiculously attractive and teasingly put his shirt on far too soon. And then of course there's the hot girlfriend, Riley, played by a Jessica Lucas migrated from 90210, and all the other fabulously beautiful residents. The gate on 4616 Melrose Place must read "You can't move in unless you're pretty."
The characters' beauty aside, the most intriguing aspect of the first episode was the juxtaposition of the goody-goodies and the ones who seemed to have misplaced their moral compasses. There's the earnest videographer pedaling his amateur film against the slutty, drug-abusing thief. There's the compassionate doctor-in-training versus the haughty, bisexual publicist who takes what she wants. The conflicts work because they're plausible and relatable: What would you do if someone offered you $5000 in tuition money in exchange for sex? (Mm, no comment). Or maybe you'd blackmail and exploit your way into stardom if you had the opportunity. All this combined with a murder in the first ten minutes of the show, and the subsequent whodunit, and Melrose Place becomes a dizzying, yet absorbing drama. Which totally knocked me down on my ass because I expected it to suck.
I guess I expected Melrose Place to be so bad because every time I heard about it or saw an advertisement, I would see Ashlee Simpson. Producers, pay attention: this is what we call 'poor marketing.' After the drab hour spent watching 90210, MP seemed like an oasis in a programming desert. I'll definitely be checking back next week to see if it was all a mirage, or if the show can make good on its promise and become even half as tantalizingly addictive as the original.
Did you love it, too?? Or maybe you hated it and you think I'm a moron?? Sound off! Leave a comment.
TV Review: 9021No.
90210 came back from the grave, or wherever it is that cancelled TV shows go and now it's back for its second season. Hot guys and scantily clad girls rampaging wild and loose in Beverly Hills, yeeeeee!! Wait. What's with all the suck??
90210 should work. It's got all the makings of a hit teen drama and the advantage of a template that it can shamelessly abuse. However, as shallow as the genre is purported to be, teen drama is evidently more than just the sum of its parts. 90210 is almost a parody of what it's trying to be. You can almost hear the writers and producers scratching their heads as they attempt to grasp the inner workings of a teenager's mind and the "whomp whomp" as they fail miserably.
The show's leading ladies are legitimately gorgeous, especially queen bee Naomi, played by AnnaLynne McCord, whose venomous facial expressions are something every self-respecting gay boy should be practicing in the mirror. But all the slow-motion scenes of the girls in itsy bitsy bikinis at the private pool club or strutting the school hallways in chic ensembles (Silver looked fabulous, didn't she?) isn't enough to overlook the show's stunning lack of decent dialogue. Wait, maybe 'decent' is too high a standard? How about any dialogue at all?? None of the characters actually talk to one another; there is only self-absorbed ranting that no one onscreen actually pays any attention to. 80% of the forced, contrived drama that will indubitably be rehashed on the show until at least January could have been resolved in the first episode if any of the characters cared to actually carry on a conversation.Also, what's with all the plot devices coming at you with the speed of an old granny in a walker? Annie, troubled by her deep, dark secret, pushing her friends and family away and turning to sex and alcohol? Called that, saw it on Degrassi five years ago. Naomi, jumping from man to hideous, double-chinned older man to keep her mind off the (smoking hot) guy who wronged her last season and, surprise!!, has enrolled in all of her classes this year? Yeah, not surprised. And what's with all the disingenuous histrionics? One day, Silver has no idea whether she wants to be with Ethan or Dixon, the next she "can't breathe, can't breathe" *rolls eyes* because she knows it's Dixon now but he doesn't want to be with her, and the next the bitch is totally fine and absolutely WERQing a fierce outfit down the halls of her school (seriously, that belt was fire). Spare me. Oh, and another thing: does it have to be so blatantly obvious that none of these people are remotely close to 16??
I'll give the show another shot next week in the hopes that Naomi will make another stank face and Liam will take his shirt off for some reason, but, unless Ethan and Tabitha both come back to the show and start making out with each other, I almost certainly won't be following 90210 this season. There's just too much else on this year.
Think I was too harsh? Did you absolutely love it?? Sound off! Leave me a comment.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Fall Premieres - Reviews
It's that time again. Time for fall premieres! What shows will you be watching this season? Check back here throughout the next few weeks to read impressions of the shows once they air and see what's worth following this fall. Am I missing a show on the calendar?? Did I get a show's review totally wrong?? Give me feedback and I'll follow your favorites.
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