AN and a TM!

I finally watched the first episode of America's Next Top Model. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I know one thing for sure, and that is that the pre-released photos of the contestants were completely misleading.Well, not completely. Mostly just for one girl.

I have abandoned all my favorites and settled, instead on Hannah.

And maybe I have a type, since she's got a similar look to former favorites of mine, Allison and Jane.

So I don't know how I feel about the whole skipping casting week thing. I was all for it until a coworker pointed out that we now know nothign about these girls. This is true. But getting straight to photo shoots and runways was right up my alley. And oh, did they really get straight to it.

Walking above water has suddenly become blase. Walking above water in a giant hamster ball full of red confetti, on the other hand, is not. And of course the judges acted like these gals were completely innept when they fell off the runway and couldn't get themselves righted again. They're stuck in a bubble floating on top of a pool, people! I loved when Erin Wasson said that she didn't think she could even do that. No one can. These runway challenges are asinine.

Among other highlights of the evening: when they tricked the girls who made it into believing, at first, that they actually hadn't. Tyra spewed off something about getting used to rejection, and learning the trick from Ashton Kutcher.Yes, Ashton Kutcher. The real clincher on the crapfest of the move, was that there was a flipside to the prank Tyra pulled on her cycle 16 contestants: A group of girls who didn't actually make the cut, who were lead to believe they had. Of course they were thrilled. Of course they all had flashes of themselves as in self-congratulatory photo shoots starring Tyra. Of course they were practicing saying, "you can see my latest photos in Vogue It-al-ia." And then, somewhere off screen, someone who I guarantee was not Tyra, broke the news that they didn't make it, but were, in fact, part of an elaborate joke on the girls who stole their dreams away.

Cold.

Luckily, Jaclyn's fear that she would get stuck in the giant hamster ball forever brought me right back around and I forgot all about those sad sacks Tyra wanted me to forget all about.

So anyway, last week it was being a giant hamster, and this week it's posing with bees. BEES!?!?!! As much as I like bees, I'm starting to get the feeling that ANTM is turning into one giant episode of Fear Factor. Or 13: Fear is Real. Pretty soon you will see this face on your screen, saying:

"RATS ATE HER FACE!"

That one's for you, Joel.