In a way, I'm glad Gina is still around because there were some nasty comments I was going to make about her. Of course, I've forgotten what they are, which, unfortunately, is a result of another less than stellar episode. Last night, the problem was a relative lack of non-competition drama. In past episodes, the problem had to do with imbalanced or diffused attention to the contestants: to Jade, and to all the pre-finalist jobbers. Each of these problems is indicative of bad storytelling, which in the past has generally been a strength of ANTM. While this season is still too early to make any worthwhile observations, we haven't gotten a consistent narrative beyond being saturated by Gina vs. Jade.
The difficulty might be due to the fact that as institutional as the show has become, ANTM risks categorizing its contestants too neatly into one-dimensional types. Nnenna seemed like the overwhelming favorite, but when she stumbled in her catwalk, did we get to see her reflections about this weakness? No, we got Gina begging to become Danielle's sidekick. I'm not saying that the episode would've been made great if we got to hear from Nnenna since she's as charismatic as a piece of cardboard, but allowing her to voice her experience would've gone a long way to laying groundwork for a longer narrative that could've deepened Nnenna's character. But instead, the show got lazy and went with crazy diva action.
Indie rating: Loose Fur - "Wreckroom"
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