America's Next Top Model (Cycle 13) - 13x04 "Make Me Tall"

Against my better judgment, I am falling for Nicole as my cyclical Favorite Top Model Contestant, because she's a self-secluding weirdo with some lustrously pale skin, and hey, redhead, and she even seems to have a well-developed moral worldview that cuts through adolescent drama. More interestingly, though, is the reason I'm reluctant to identify a favorite -- because the type of contestant that the show casts (not to mention the type of contestant to whom I'm drawn) always has some fatally annoying or downright dealbreaking flaw that is inevitably drawn out when the competition has sifted out the chaff to leave the "contenders." At this point, either they let the politics of winning overwhelm their ethics/my aesthetics and/or the stress of competition breaks their fragile minds. Hopefully, Nicole's sedateness/apparent disinterest in the competition will help her avoid such moral pitfalls, but I'm aware that I'm setting myself up for more disappointment.

Also, that little girl they brought out like a prize show horse is a terrible fright. She nearly made me ill.

Indie rating: Kinski – "XXXVI"

America's Next Top Model (Cycle 13) - 13x01 "How Short Can You Go", 13x02 "The Early Bird Gets A Makeover"

Ever since ANTM started, I've never been as uninterested in an upcoming cycle as this the 13th, and when I finally got around to watching, Amber (and her looked to be the craziest contestant on the show since Cycle 6's Jade, which would at least make a guiltily entertaining cycle, if not one I'd actually enjoy. Then of course she drops out of the competition before it even starts, and I was about ready to throw the whole cycle over. Yet, at some point over the course of the second episode, I realized that ANTM isn't cut out for longform narrative anymore (such as it ever was), and that for me to best appreciate the show nowadays, I'd have to learn to stop worrying about who ought to win and instead focus on each individual episode as its own discrete spectacle with its own explosions of inanity or cattiness.

Perhaps these early episodes emphasize the girls themselves as we're slowly introduced to them, while the later episodes focus on the politics of who's going to be the winner or who's going to make it to the overseas portion of the show. Meeting the girls for the first time retains its novelty each cycle -- they might not be memorable, but at least they're willing to cry or get in fights -- but then the girls' tics and biases start to wear thin, plus the show sheds its more whimsical impulses as it gradually marches towards the politicized half of the cycle when it turns its attention to who'll win even though, clearly, ANTM is not about winning/successful modeling.

Nevertheless, the show's moral element rears its head during its politicized segments. Although the drama on most reality programs are driven by morality, ANTM has gotten especially formulaic with it; instead of drama (when was the last time the designated villain really destabilized the moral framework of a cycle?), it only provides ritual debasement. Some forgettably disagreeable girl steps on everyone's toes, but we all expect Tyra to get her righteous on to remove the offending contestant from competition. Hardly the hottest stuff on the reality circuit.

So that said, I'm going to keep it simple this cycle and let the stupid wash over me.

Indie rating: Glass Candy - "Rolling Down The Hills"