"America's Next Top Model" is taking a cue from every other reality show out there and focusing a little too much on the drama, and not quite enough on the actual modeling competition. The episode always starts off with the girls reacting to the previous panel, but this time, it was Brenda going off on the girls in the house who said she looked like "Chucky" and Miranda from "Sex and the City."
Ren was also complaining about the same thing she bitched entirely too much about last week. She's unhappy, there's too much drama in the house, and this week, she added that she was doing this only because her mom loves the show and this was the only way to get her to pay attention to her.
The whole Ren thing is somewhat disappointing. After watching the show for several cycles now, you'd think someone Tyra Banks handpicked would turn out to be a better contestant than one who complains non-stop. It would have been even cooler if she turned out to be a mole, or something…anything to make her more than an obnoxious complainer.
But, before I continue too far on the Ren bashing, I'll explain this week's competition. The girls were dragged into a party bus with red and blue sides. The girls were divided into teams and had to answer fashion questions. The winning team was going to receive a go-see with the Bluefly.com executives and gift cards to use online. The losing team would have to sort out Bluefly.com's warehouse inventory.
Tocarra, from cycle 3, was there to host the game show, complete with cheesy, unnecessary graphics. The teams were pretty evenly matched. Raina, who had last week's best photo, was the scorekeeper and was going to participate in the win anyway, despite which team won. Ultimately, the last question came down to knowing who was the host of "America's Next Top Model" in Germany. Brenda didn't know that Heidi Klum was the host, but Simone did, leading her team to victory.
Simone also received the victory seal of approval from Bluefly.com and was chosen as the go-see winner. She will be in an advertising campaign to promote their website. Angelea, Jessica, Krista, Alexandra and Raina received $500 gift cards as their participation prize.
The photo shoot this week brought in dancer Tony Powell to teach the girls some choreography to help them with their poses. The main problem with the shoot this week was that the girls took their poses too literally and didn't spark enough emotion behind their dancing.
The best photo this week went to Alasia, mostly because of judge Talley on panel who seems to love her more than she deserves. She barely deserved to be on TV, wearing her bright metallic swimsuit as a shirt to panel. She had interpretive dance as her genre, and did, to her credit, look nice.
Following Alasia was the dark horse, Angelea. The judges on panel seem to have faith in her. She represented "moshing" in her photo. The head of Wilhelmina Models said he liked how she could embody an emotion of pain in her photo.
Jessica was called next, despite the judges' critique of her photo being too literal of salsa dancing. Jessica is a beautiful girl and consistently takes good photos without much critique.
Alexandra redeemed herself from falling on the runway last week with her break dancing photo. Tyra has been hinging on the models' necks showing strong in their photos, but this was the only thing lacking from Alexandra's picture.
Krista, despite her giraffe-like neck, was called next for being a ballerina. Not too much was said about her photo, it was nice, but there was nothing special.
Last week's top photo winner, Raina, was next. She didn't have an overly flattering photo this week. She was supposed to represent Jazz, but her dark hair and clothing seemed to blend in a little too much with the backdrop. But, Tyra told her that this was only one of her best shots. She apparently had many to choose from, which is always a nice option and impressing to the judges.
Unmemorable Tatianna followed. She had a tap photo that Tyra called purely luck, considering the rest of her film was terrible. Jay Manuel expressed that she lost too much of her energy during the actual photo shoot.
Despite being the challenge winner, Simone's photo fell to the bottom of the pack. She was unable to represent hip-hop in an honest fashion. She fell flat and played it too safe.
Anslee was close to being in the bottom two. She was too conscious of her posing and Jay Manuel told her she "missed the model boat."
This left Brenda and Ren, the complainer, in the bottom two. Brenda and her controversy led her to think too much about her photo. She also showed up to panel looking like an accountant, in the judges' words. She was supposed to represent African tribal dancing, but took herself way too seriously and did not take a good photo. But, after all of Ren's complaints, Tyra knew it was time to send her packing. She was more than willing to leave and get back to whatever it is she does in her normal everyday life. A few words of advice, if you want a normal life with no drama, don't go on a reality show. Period.
