Someone stop Tyra, please, we've created a monster! (America's Next Top Model)

Member Name: bamamo

Product:	America's Next Top Model
Date:	18/11/08 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of drama, it's fun to mock Tyra

Disadvantages: Sometimes Tyra gets just TOO annoying.

America's Next Top Model (hereafter referred to as ANTM) is my guilty pleasure TV of choice. On these cold and rainy days when I have nothing better to do, I have been known to curl up in bed and watch the new series on YouTube before it's aired over here (usually about a year later). Despite the fact that it's getting considerably old, this is series (or "cycle" as they refer to it) 11, I'm not bored yet, despite the bottom-of-the-barrel themes for photoshoots and the ever-more-irritating host, Tyra Banks.

Okay, so we've established that I'm a loser and I watch crappy television. Now let's learn some more about the show.

The first "cycle" was aired in 2003 and ever since it's been a hit, with many different countries producing their own version (indeed our own Britain's Next Top Model is on cycle 4). The basic premise is that they hold auditions, pick finalists (between 10 and 14 so far) and each week eliminate one after a series of photoshoots, challenges and tutorials in modelling skills.

When we're down to about five, they will feign surprise as Tyra springs a trip abroad on them (don't they watch the show at all?) and eventually the final two face a runway show after which the judges will deliberate and determinate who is crowned America's Next Top Model. The prize is a modelling contract with a prestigious agency (which changes sporadically) and a cover and spread in a magazine. In the last few cycles, as Tyra's ego inflates, she's taken to elbowing her way into these spreads because, as you will realise after about five minutes of watching ANTM, it's really all about Tyra (ugh).

I should point out that I really have no interest in fashion or modelling. What I do, however, like to watch is car-crash television, and this surely is it. So it's not a horrible show, clearly it's been very successful, but between Tyra's manic episodes (seriously, why must she sing everything she says?!) and bitching that's always going to occur when you put a group of girls that age in a house together, there's rarely a dull moment.

My favourite part of the show (besides the fact that few of them rarely make anything of themselves after all that effort) is pretty much hating Tyra. To begin with, I didn't mind her. She seemed to genuinely want to help the girls. Skip ahead two or three cycles and she is a little less hands-on, a little more "look at me! look at me!". By Cycle 11, we've created a monster. Her bizarre foreign accents for no apparent reason and pantomime entrances are confusing to say the least, yet the contestants squeal and applaud like trained monkeys whenever she turns up to their luxury apartment to "hang out" (aka ask personal questions on television about their eating disorders, dead mothers, etc etc).

Yes, sob stories are, as with all reality TV shows, welcome here and a huge decider in getting onto the show, it would seem. There's a peverse kind of pleasure behind Tyra's eyes (after all, she's always harping on about "smiling with the eyes") whenever someone reveals a dead mother, a secret illness, a past drug addiction or period of homelessness. Super Tyra to the rescue! She is quick to comfort the sobbing young model with a story of an equally tough time for her - like when her shoes were really tight and she *gasp* had to wear them for a WHOLE RUNWAY SHOW! In the series currently playing in the US, Tyra showed how understanding and open-minded she is by putting a pre-op transsexual amongst the contestants. I won't give any spoilers by saying how long she lasted, but from the comments made, it seems like she was placed in there purely to make Tyra look like she was doing her bit for charity.

Next to Tyra, the judges are relatively normal, which is saying something as past and present they have included to name a few "Miss Jay" (who is male and their runway coach), dayglo orange Mr Jay, neurotic but oh-so-honest Janice Dickinson and the pervy photographer Nigel Barker, who has a thing for every Asian girl to appear on the show.

Of course, there is more to the show, they do learn about modelling, wear crazy outfits and do photoshoots dressed as pirates or natural disasters or draped in raw meat. But what's fun about that? Give me a fight in the hot tub, some bitch "pouring beer on my weave" and a has-been presenter who wants to make sure people don't forget she exists, in ever more pathetic ways, and we have quality television.

ANTM is shown on Living TV, to be honest it's pretty much ALWAYS showing one cycle or another. If you're a loser like me, you can catch up with the new series on YouTube (although the powers-that-be have been removing them lately so it's harder to find episodes) before they air in the UK.

Summary: Thoroughly entertaining trashy television.