I can’t believe it’s already time for another season of America’s Next Top Model. Last night’s premiere picked up right where I remember it leaving off – which is to say, ridiculously.
Our fearless leader, Tyra Banks, tosses and turns in her bed as visions of RuPaul – no, wait – visions of herself emulating past contestants dance around her head.
She wakes to tell us it’s not a nightmare; it’s a reality. She went back through all the old cycles and brought back our favorites for a season of ANTM All-Stars (or mostly the people who caused some kind of controversy)!
This season is gonna get cray because not only are the All-Stars coming, but a whole slew of B-D list celebrities will be giving the girls pointers, possibly trying to hit on them and definitely trying to pimp out their new clothing line (Kardashians, I am looking at you).
In a quick preview of what’s to come, the girls will be doing more than just smizing to get love from the judges. They’ll be writing their own songs and shooting their own music videos while getting expert help from Keenan Cahill (the lip-dub kid from YouTube). I’m not sure if you’ve seen any of his videos – and quite frankly, I’m not sure Tyra has, either, if this is who she wants them to take after. I’m being generous if I say he knows 25 percent of the words to any of the songs he records lip dubs for. But, OK, it’s not my show. I can calm down.
Just as I was regretting volunteering to recap this season, Tyra promises All-Star drama and, best of all, new slang! “Smize” has been getting a lot of love from my lexicon over the past few years so I’m ready for more magical vocabulary to use while commenting on my friends’ Facebook pictures.
Let’s get this party started!
The first to enter the house is Angelea from Cycle 14 who is self-proclaimed “classy ghetto” and, if her sound bytes from this first episode are any indication, will be getting into the most fights in the house.
Next to enter the house is Laura from the petite cycle of girls. I remember liking her a lot but I don’t know if it was her sweetness or how much she reminded me of Mary Cherry from Popular that really reeled me in.
Cycle 9’s resident bitch Bianca comes in and Angelea is positive she’ll be getting into a fight with her. In order to check that off of her self-fulfilling prophecy list, Angelea starts singing a song with only one word (“Drama”) as she spins in a small circle in front of Bianca. It’s too early to place bets, but I think Angelea will need to step up her game when the models are challenged to write their own songs.
Lisa, the wild child from Cycle 5, is back and six years older than when she first appeared. I only make note of that because I distinctly remember the other girls from her cycle complaining that she already looked too old and she had a lazy eye. Apparently I am concentrating on all the wrong details because Bianca remembers Lisa as the girl who peed in a diaper, to which I say, there are many things she could have peed in that would’ve been worse than a diaper.
Bre is the next to come through the door and the only reason I remember her is because she was on the same cycle as the hotness known as Kim Stolz. Are we sure Kim wasn’t picked as a fan favorite? She’s a fan favorite in my dreams.
Cycle 4’s party girl, Brittany, comes in and I think she’s pretty hot! She reminds me a lot of Mikey’s fiance, Raquel from The Real L Word.
Dominique from Cycle 10 walks in and looks amazing for just having had a baby two months ago. Remember her? She was the contestant who looked really masculine in a lot of her photos. She walked in looking beautiful, but I’m a little worried her makeover isn’t going to do her any favors if this screen shot is any indication.
Sheena Sakai (aka Kimora Lee Simmons) and Isis from Season 11 have joined the all-stars. For those of you who don’t remember, Isis was a MTF transgender contestant who did pretty well but whose confidence ultimately led to her being dismissed. Now homegirl got her gender reassignment surgery and is ready to do high kicks in bathing suits!
Kayla from Cycle 15, which I didn’t watch, is on and oh, she’s the proud lesbian! That makes me a bad lesbian. Bad Mia, bad! I’ll pay better attention now.
Cycle 12’s lover of weird things (blood in particular) with the big eyes, Allison, is back and really into herself.
When Camille from Cycle 2 arrives, everyone’s eyes roll and many admit she’s the contestant they most didn’t want to see because she’s a big diva. Hello, pot? The kettle called.
Shannon from the very first season is back to prove you can be a model as well as a role model. Her claim to moderate fame is that she didn’t want to pose nude during one of the photo shoots. I don’t blame her – isn’t that what everyone tells aspiring models to look out for?
Last, but certainly not least, Alexandria from cycle 16 arrives and says the reason she accepted the invitation to come back on the show was to clear the air about some things she felt were misrepresented in her season. Of course, the editors then cut to a montage of her bitchy looks and quotes and I’m thinking this means she’s not going to be represented any better this time around. Hell, even my TiVo doesn’t like her – every time I pressed pause or tried to rewind just a little bit, it landed on a picture like this.
Jay Emmanuel arrives and everyone is psyched. He says they were all picked because they were fan favorites and explains that they’ll be doing much more than just modeling this time. This time it’s about star quality and their first photo shoot happens right away in their backyard.
For the first time in my viewing history, the photographer getting ready to shoot the girls, Celeste Canino, legitimately looks pumped to see and work with them all.
Their challenge: They’re going to be styled as the larger than life version of their ANTM persona.
With the exception of Bianca, who starts to lose it over getting red hair extensions, everything seems to go rather smoothly until Shannon, the one who didn’t want to expose her bits, is once again pressured into wearing something more revealing than she had wanted. Her outfit was supposed to include some lace boy-short underwear but she insisted on wearing some tiny white bikini bottoms instead. Jay Emmanuel tried to talk her out of it, especially since the lace bottoms actually covered up more of her than the bikini bottoms, but Shannon stuck to her decision. If I had her body, I’d be making naked gifs of myself to post throughout these recaps.
Once the shots have been taken, the girls are told they’ll be taking part in the first-ever live judging panel in front of their biggest fans and guest judge Nicki Minaj.
The stage is set, the people in the audience look like they don’t know what they’re there for and Tyra comes out to greet the crowd. I’m not gonna lie: I’m not sure about the pants, but I think Tyra looked kind of hot with those suspenders and that hat. Ms. Banks channels her inner Oprah and introduces judges Nigel Barker (who looks really good with hair), Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley (who looks like the lost Golden Girl in the muumuu he’s wearing) and Nicki Minaj, whose fashion advice I couldn’t take seriously even if I were hooked up to an electrical shocking system.
When called upon, each girl goes down the elevated runway, through the crowd and towards the judge’s table. What they don’t know is, at the end of the night, they are scored on not only their picture, but also the reactions of the crowd.
Most of the girls do pretty well as far as the crowd is concerned but Alexandria (the one who came to clear things up) gets some boos and even a few f-bombs thrown at her.
The judges seemed a little split when it came to the pictures but overall, Nicki Minaj hated most of the people I liked. She and I are fighting.
At the end of the night, Ms. Jay and Jay Emmanuel went through the crowd asking who their favorites were. This goth Leelee Sobieski picked Allison, of course.
During the judges’ deliberation, we find that Allison was the overall crowd favorite. On the other side of the spectrum, Andre thought Brittany the party girl was too much, while no one in the audience seemed to remember her either way.
Finally, we’ve made it to the elimination! The best picture of the night went to Isis, who must’ve learned some tricks from Criss Angel in how to look like you’re levitating.
The two all-stars at the bottom of the pile end up being Alexandria and Brittany. My fears of Brittany being sent home were validated and Alexandria was able to stay because as Tyra said, “Do you know why you’re still here? It’s something called polarity. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.” She tells Alexandria that she needs to work on getting more people to like her rather than hate her. I really wish Alexandria would’ve stopped on the catwalk, faced the f-bomber and channeled her inner Jerry Springer guest to proclaim, “Y’all don’t knoooooooow me!”
So there you have it. Episode one is down and I’m really ready for some drama to happen because Tyra just wasn’t weird enough for me (with the exception of looking a bit like Michael Jackson when they went to a close up at the end of the episode).
How are you feeling about the season’s prospects? Pick your pony. I think I’m going Isis or Dominique.
