{.}

I’m not exactly proud of this, but I enjoy really bad reality TV. Take Hell’s Kitchen (please). Between Gorden Ramsey’s not-ready-for-prime-time potty mouth and the crazy crosscuts that try to amp a botched risotto into a matter of LIFE! OR! DEATH!, it’s pretty much like mainlining fried mozzarella sticks drenched in bleu cheese.

I’ve even moved one reality show, Project Runway, out of the guilty pleasure category. It has back-biting, trash-talking sleaze appeal aplenty (Boo, Wendy, soccer-mom of Machiavellian eeeevil!) but it also features talented creative people tackling challenging projects with severely constrained resources of budget, material, and time — or, in other words, it’s kinda like every job I’ve ever had.

The beginning and end of my appetite for bad reality TV, though, is America’s Next Top Model, a show of mind-numbing awfulness. It’s just so impeccably constructed. Putting a gaggle of barely/not-quite legal model wannabes together in one house to let their collected insecurities stew would be explosively volatile on its own, but ANTM doesn’t stop there by any means. It also leans heavily on the classic cult brainwashing technique of first proffering, then withholding, affection. One minute ANTM host Tyra Banks pretends to be a normal caring human being, and the next she induces thermal shock in her victims to set up the next elimination round. Also in the brainwashing spirit, the victims are given contradictory direction — they’re berated both for not being sexy enough and for being too sexy in their photo shoots, and sometimes they have to learn completely imaginary skills like “aswirling.” Then there’s the my amazement at how oblivious Tyra’s entourage is to their own ridiculousness*, and the meta-textual fun of watching the prestige of the show’s sponsors slip from season to season (the “My Life as a Covergirl” ad spots featuring the previous winner just get sadder and sadder and sadder). As the icing on cake, ANTM is currently a hot battleground in the struggle for the writers who fashion story arcs and character traits from endless hours of raw footage to get the same rights accorded to the hacks who actually write dialogue.

For me, it adds up to a potent blend of schadenfreude, smugness, open-mouthed horror, and the sort of involuntary titillation I’m embarrassed by as soon as I’m aware of it. I recently learned that there’s a Canada’s Next Top Model, and I’m actively eager to see it, since my recent experience suggests that Canadian model wannabes might be smarter and have better fashion sense than their United Statesian counterparts.

I even went so far as to watch 1 and 1/10 episodes of British Top Model Invasion — even after my wonderful girlfriend’s interest waned. This was a mistake. Each season of ANTM invariably includes a clip show shortly before the finale, in what I suspect is a vain attempt to attract viewers who haven’t been watching. The actual fans (based on my limited anecdotal experience) grouse a bit, but watch the clip shows anyway — it’s mostly stuff you’ve seen before, with a few dubious extras originally deemed good enough only for the cutting-room floor. But you usually get to see some of the best/worst moments, and sometimes there are intriguing glimpses into the alternate story arcs that were edited out of the canonical program.

But I don’t think they’re likely to draw in new viewers effectively, because there’s no opportunity to assess the performance of any of the models, let alone form any emotional attachment or develop any stake in the goings-on. The repackaging of 2 season’s worth of Britain’s Next Top Model for the US market unwisely took this clip show approach for the first hour of each program, with models eliminated bang, bang, bang, before the viewer can get any sense of their personalities or merits. The second hour focused on the final three contestants and more closely resembled the US show in pacing, but it was still limp and lame. Why? The judges are all just too darn nice. Oh, this performance was really great (even though she biffed that one bit). Ah, that performance was so good (although there was that one flaw). Oh, no, we just can’t decide!

Oh dear, I think I nodded off. Did you choose one? Ah. Humm. Good night.

* Tyra = Dorothy. Nigel = Tin Woodsman. Small Orange Jay = Scarecrow. Ms. Jay = Cowardly Lion. Janice= Wicked Witch of West; Twiggy = Glenda Good Witch of East.

Posted in television, too much information. You may comment on this entry.