Written by Aaron Roxby

It is that season again.  As the days grow shorter and the languid heat of Indian Summer rolls in, it is time to witness American philanthropist Tyra Banks exploit another batch of petty, vapid maidens in the name of fashion and fun.

Cycle 11 (I am going to assume that call these 'cycles', instead of 'seasons', because this is the third one of these I have reviewed in the last year) begins with a trip into... the future!  Or at least a trip to a warehouse in the valley dressed up to look like the laboratory from Portal as conceived by a Radio Shack Manager, circa 1983.  As per usual, a busload of giggling young gals are carted off to model training (In this cast, TMIT Top Model Institute of "Technology"(quotes mine)), where they are greeted by everyone's favorite pair of gay men in ridiculous outfits (after Batman and Robin(Man, that was too easy, I apologize)), Jay Manuel and "Miss" J. Alexander. 

Now, I think I get Jay Manuel.  With his tight silk shirts and silver frosted hair, he is basically just what Ryan Seacrest would be if he gave into his darker impulses.  Miss J, however, I don't get.  At first glance, he appears to be a joke, but everyone seems to take him really seriously, so I assume that he is serious with his shtick.  The thing is, I have been sitting here for ten solid minutes, trying to think of one way that he is different from the David Allen Grier in Men on Film, and I am drawing a blank.  So, my guess is that he is sort of the Judah Friedlander of high fashion; leveraging his mess of ironic affectations into some kind of, possibly intentional, satire of his own culture.  Anyway, the point is that when the dynamic duo emerges from the Warehouse of the Future, they are dressed sort of like an impossibly queerer version of Sandmen from Logan's Run and are referring to themselves as 'Alpha Jay' and 'Beta J'.

When they enter the Warehouse of the Future, we are treated to a new addition to the show: Visual FX that would have seemed terrible in 1998.  The girls walk through an airport metal detector and are 'scanned' by what, I swear to god, appears to be the radar system from a decommissioned submarine.  When they pass through the 'Scanner' bright green razor blade commercial lightning is passed over their bodies.  Now, I can forgive bad VFX, hell I am a fan of Doctor Who, but I was a little off put by the fact that the contestants on this 'Reality' show were apparently instructed to act like this stuff was real.  The gals stare at the poorly composted lightning bolts wide eyed amazement, mouths agape, until they are brought before a silver capsule.  They are told that they are going to step into the "Model-Tron"(or something like that) and be turned into the ultimate model using "technology" (They might have said something about microprocessors as well, but frankly I lack the fortitude to watch this again to tell you for sure). Before they can enter the Technopod, however, it begins to shake and spark, emitting more poorly conceived lightning, until who should emerge but... RoboTyra! 

Now, even with all that had happened up to this point, even with the fake electricity, and Alpha Jay and the submarine radar, this wasn't enough of a train wreck to really hold my interest.  Fortunately, Tyra Banks, looking like a character from Heartbeeps, jammed into a tight black pants suit, enough silver lipstick on to make me assume that somewhere, Gort is walking around with a big, sloppy robot grin, moving arms like she is doing the titular dance and talking in a staccato robovoice was enough to send the whole affair plummeting downward into an all to brief abyss of entertainment. 

From there, the show progresses pretty much as expected.  The girls do a quick fashion shoot, dressed in wetsuits and posing with those giant rubber abdominal exercise balls, then they cut some people, then there is an interview section (Most notable, Tyra Banks pretending to be a moose, while chasing down a terrified young lady and chirping like emu), then they cut some more potential models, and are left with a pretty standard assortment of naive farm girls, bitchy "I will do anything to win" chicks and, for the first time, a pre-op transsexual.  Interestingly, this is the first cycle I have seen, in which the one plus size model fails to make the final cut, as apparently they already had their "Freak who has no chance to win, but we invited because we are big hearted and totally not superficial" for this cycle.  Isis the tranny, however, happens to be the best model there, by a long shot. 

In the interest of fairness, I am going to give Cycle 11 two separate grades.  The first will grade it against all other television shows, with an A being something like The Wire, The Twilight Zone or the British The Office and an F being an infomercial for a product that you already purchased and that injured you upon taking it out of the box.

The Second score grades it against other cycles of top model; a complex equation involving factors such as, the quality and originality of the photo shoot, how many times Tyra affects completely unconvincing "Urban Flava". the frequency and quality of lesbian overtones, the number of giant Orwellian photos of Tyra are attached to the sets, and the number of fast forward, goofy sound effect ridden Benny Hill style montages.

As Television: D
As America's Next Top Model: B-

Cycle 11 Premieres Wed. 9/3 at 8/7c