America's Next Top Recap: Good Girls Gone Bad

I honestly had no idea season, er, cycle 12 of “Top Model” was premiering last night.

Completely forgetting is a mini-big deal for me since this’ll be my fifth cycle recapping the show and I’ve said, on more than on occasion, that it’s my absolute favorite column to write.

Still, it took me stumbling across the CW while trying to decide if I wanted to give “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” a second chance on ABC to realize the “Top Model” season premiere was on. The fact that I don’t watch any other show on the CW (and I missed the commercials for the show) probably had a lot to do with it. Another factor may be that “Top Model” just feels tired.

However, here I am, eating up all the wonderfully trash-tastic shenanigans the Goddess of Fierce Tyra has planned for us, and hating myself for actually waiting to watch a new episode of “Lost” on the DVR while I took in the bloated, over long two-hour “Top Model” premiere live.

This year’s arbitrary season premiere theme was that the contestants were Greek goddesses (past years included boot camp soldiers and, um, robots). Tyra made her obligatory garish entrance, welcomed the girls and then left them to go eat some grapes.

If I sound a bit apprehensive is because I don’t usually get into a season of “Top Model” until the makeover episode. The premieres are especially challenging since we’re bombarded by contestants trying to outcrazy/outcharacter each other. (If you’re scoring at home, “seizures” beats “blaxican”, “conspiracy theorist” beats “seizures, “preacher” beats “conspiracy theorist,” and “burn victim” beats all.)

The field went from 35 down to 21 instead of the customary 20 (see, because they’re in Vegas), and we said goodbye to Kathryn and her food pens. After that, the girls were cut down to the final 13, and we said goodbye to ghetto (not so) fabulous Angelea, who’d gotten into a shouting, fingernail waving, brushing-up-against-each-other face off with Sandra. While it’s back to the Port Authority (or worse, according to her — Buffalo!), for Angelea, she did help illuminate the overriding theme of the early part of the season: Sandra is a raging bitch.

After the selection show, the producers worked extra hard to show us what a horrible human being Sandra is. From arguing about a bed she had no right to pick (that belonged to Celia), to rudely kicking her roommates out at the ungodly late hour of 10:30 p.m., she did everything she could to distance herself from everyone. And those were the things her fellow models saw and heard! (She was even more vicious in her confessionals.) Still, the thing I dislike about her the most is how thoroughly tedious she is. “I’m not here to make friends” is NOT an original concept Sandra.

That and the incredibly high amount of pills Isabella had to take to control her epilepsy were the only highlights in the house. The week’s challenge was so dull that they didn’t even bother declaring a winner for that “good girl, bad girl” runway show. (Though Sandra, only walking a quarter of the way down the runway, was CLEARLY the loser. I loved Ms. J’s disapproving look. He looked personally offended.)

Still, that was more interesting than this week’s photo shoot. Apparently, Tyra’s passion in life (right now) is to make sure young girls maintain their innocence and their childhood as long as they can. I’m just not sure how dressing a bunch of grown women up as jail bait-y little girls playing games is going to further that cause. For good measure, three model “extras” were thrown in, including one who was supposed to represent teen pregnancy, but was really just creepy. (Pictured, right, the "bad girls" surround Blaxican Fo in a ring around the rosey of doom.)

On top of that, the girls don’t really know anything about modeling yet, so about half of them resorted to the same “putting my leg up in a dancer-y way” move. Finally, I’m no professional photog (and I’m sure it was intentional), but I didn’t like how grainy the pictures looked. If they’re supposed to be little girls, why is the photography gritty?

My favorite (and the judges’) was Allison, whose huge eyes only freak me out any time the camera cuts to her. I also liked London’s shot, as well as Celia’s. My least favorites were Aminat (totally uninteresting), Isabella (maybe dodging the dodgeball would’ve been a good idea), and Sandra’s (so much more she could’ve done with “hide and seek”).

After Nigel coined the term “wind in the face” to describe the alien-like Teyona, I was convinced the bottom two would be Sandra and the insecure Tahlia, who has burn marks on most of her lower body and let it affect her work. However, Sandra was joined in the bottom two by Isabella, who was sent home after risking a seizure during the strobe light-y runway show and because she’s not as interesting a TV character as Sandra. Welcome back, “Top Model”!

By the way, my customary Ridiculously Early Pick to Win it All is Celia because, at 25, she’s considered old (which counts as a legitimate obstacle to overcome on this show) and because I like that she looks like a really tall version of “The Closer” star Kyra Sedgwick. (Con-feyyss!)

So what’d you think of this episode? Can YOU name five working models right now? I’ve got Giselle Bundchen (does she even count), Bar Rafaeli and that’s it. What was up with Mr. Jay's ridiculous bicycling outfit? Finally, who is your early favorite and who is your early anti-favorite?