America's Next Top Model - Cycle 14

First of all, can I just say I enjoy this show SO much more when Tyra is calm? I respect her as a model, a businesswoman, a brand and alright, I guess as a mentor to other young girls. But I really hate it when she gets too involved in anything other than judging panel, examples include the time she taught the models about movement (she got to wear a black catsuit while all the models had to wear those flesh-colored bodysuits, hilarious and cruel at the same time), or the photo shoots where she has them dressed up as Mongolian warriors on the Great Wall of China or pretty much any time she is having heart-to-heart chats with these young woman who always dissolve into tears and have a personality change as a result of the one-to-one time with Tyra. 

First let's talk about the judges. And this cycle, season 14, Tyra seems almost Zen-like, really, like Maya-Angelou-serene. Mind you, I fast forward through her weekly introduction of the judges and the fabulous prizes so I am probably missing out on the fusion-accents and odd singing she often does (note to self: digital video recorders ROCK, and save me from so much Model pain). She's totally working the jumpsuits as well and has an updated judging panel to preside over.

No more Miss J, which is fine for me. He was no more than a circus show with his bows and ruffles each week on the panel. I'm glad he's just doing the training thing. But there IS a new face on the judging panel; the new edition is Andre Leon Talley (why have 2 names when you can have 3?) He's some kind of traveling editor for Vogue, what do you call them again?  "Editor-at-Large"... doesn't that mean he occasionally gets editing gigs, but he's not the REAL editor? I mean if she got Anna Wintour to be a judge, that'd be impressive. But Tyra wouldn't, even if she could. Why not? Because I'm convinced Tyra is unabashedly the alpha female and female judges just don't last, they start to threaten Tyra and she has to get rid of them (Janice Dickesnon, Twiggy, Paulina Porizkova, all of them in female judges graveyard now). In a way she's like Russell Hantz of Survivor "If you're not with me, then you're against me. And if you are, you got to go." Perhaps she'll allow Andre to stay because even though he's quite dominating and camp, he is still a man and so can't quite steal her alpha female thunder. Or can he? He's pretty fierce so we'll see if he's back next season! And there's still Nigel Barker and I've got just two words about him: hubba hubba.
 

So Miss J is doing the runway training and just this week he did some kind of "creating chemistry with another model, who's a stranger, but you have to do a shoot with them, so see how fast you can create a connection" challenge, which was just plain weird. But I'm sure that wasn't his idea. And there's Jay Manuel ("Mr Jay" to you and me), I have a lot of time for him because I think he knows photo shoots, or at least Top Model photo shoots. Incidentally, he is the Canadian Tyra Banks. Jay is neither Canadian nor Tyra, but he is "her" on Canada's Next Top Model and in that function, I do not buy it. My only complaint about Jay is his hair. Maybe it was fashion forward 3 years ago when he started coloring his hair silver and spiking it up in a flat top but dude, you're (supposedly) in FASHION, isn't it time to change it up?

The contestants are back to being normal height and this season there have been some interesting looking girls. I love the show best when they take girls that may be striking, not necessarily strikingly beautiful, and with dressing, styling and Photoshop, they completely transform in the photos. I mean Angelea looks like such a drag queen (and kind of scares me in general, frankly) but man, how strong is she in the shoots? I find it equally interesting when they take pretty girls like Jessica and make them somehow look high fashion. We're probably half way through the cycle and here are some thoughts on the girls that are left:

Alasia: I am utterly confused as to what she's doing in this show at all. She is not beautiful, nor striking or anything special at all. I don't even like her "best" photos. I wonder what they see in her?
Krista: while she doesn't do that much for me, her bone structure and sleek looks make me think she might actually get regular modeling work after the show, if not a top model.
Brenda: sourpuss
Raina: she's the most obvious model amongst them all, I think it's hers to lose.
Anslee: Girl needs botox in the forehead. Not one of my favs but interested to see how her photos develop if she has the chance. 
Jessica: just a pretty girl from a small town. I was going to say she won't go much farther but last season's Laura from Kansas was the runner-up, so we'll see.
Angelea: the dark horse. She's not that eloquent as speaker so how good a spokeswomen would she be for Cover Girl. But then again, remember Jaselene won (amazing pics and runways) but she couldn't string more than a few words together!
Alexandria: I was most impressed with her during the try-outs, she worked that bikini! Now I don't care that much.

I think...it is still entertaining and worth watching; Tyra's more serene, the judges are very capable, the girls are interesting and I can fast forward through drama and silly challenges to what makes this show worth watching: photo shoots and resulting pics. 

See you on Twitter! @whatvalthinks. 
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