America's Next Top Model - Season 10, Episode 1
You know how the first episode of every season is a hour full of ear-splitting squeals, the mini-competition to see who has the most fucked-up backstory, the token promise from the token plus-size girl that she's going to go all the way, the fights about nothing, the elimination of legitimately pretty girls to make way for dogs, and Tyra's gargantuan ego?
Welcome to Season 10: Not An Exception!
Actually, all things told, this opener isn't as wretched as I was expecting. After a brief jaunt through Top Model history, in which Adrianne still doesn't exist, and we have to watch Joanie's tooth extraction for the four thousandth time, we get down to meeting the semi-finalists. The weeding-out episode always has a weak theme, and this time, it's that the girls are attending a prep school, and those that pass will make it into the house. Really, it's just an excuse to dress them up as slutty schoolgirls, so they can remind us of pre-psycho Britney.
The girls themselves are the garden-variety famewhores this show attracts, though one or two strike me as pretty cool. The always-distasteful race to see who has the most woeful past includes abusive boyfriends, rape, Mormon mothers, and female circumcision. The latter has befallen Somalia-born Fatima, who may be kind of awesome, and who doesn't win many friends by referring to the other women-of-color in the semi-finals as ghetto. Those other girls somehow fail to realize that if they want to shatter that stereotype, getting up in Fatima's face with the Waving Finger and the Oh No You Di'int Head Bob was probably not a good idea. The other finalists are composed of: Not-Pretty-But-Fascinating Girl, Big Whitney 2, Grace Jones Wannabe, Snotty Teen, Gawky Weirdo, Hawaiian Marblemouth, Normal Girl, Polish Import, Pug Fugly Blond, Perky Child Bride, Man-Faced Hag, and Boring Girl. That's thirteen, but you may note that we're missing someone. So of course, Tyra opens up a fourteenth spot to allow room for the Bitch. Damn.
Overall Grade: B-
