Welcome to Bravo's newest reality show, Make Me A Supermodel. It's the competitive modeling show that will pit men against women. Throughout the season, viewers at home will get to decide who stays and who goes. Gee, if they had done this for America's Next Top Model, then maybe Heather would have won.

Tyson Beckford and Niki Taylor traveled across the country to find the top male and female wannabe models. They chose 35 finalists and brought them to New York to narrow the field down to just 14 models. Tonight's casting special will show us just how they did it.

The first city they go to is Dallas. There are some sad looking people in Dallas, particularly a Napoleon Dynamite-esque boy with a mop of blond hair who says that he's "better than all you bitches."

Next up is Chicago, which Niki calls the city of big shoulders. I've never heard that name for it. Igor and Josiah are found in Chicago. Ronnie confesses in his audition that his first partner was a porn star. There are a lot of attractive men in Chicago. I better book myself a plane ticket there, stat.

Miami proved to be a treasure trove for female models. We meet Holly from Virginia here. She shares her sob story about her poor upbringing in her video submission. Casey, from Hotlanta, is the brooding guitarist of the bunch. Oh, and then there is Frankie. He has beautiful eyes and beautiful full, curly hair, but a tad full of himself.

Hollywood is the next stop on Niki and Tyson's tour. is good-looking, but he has an odd head size-to-shoulder size ratio. Dominic claims to speak fluent Spanish, but it looks like he can only speak it with a Muppet voice.

Finally, it's back to New York. There is one awesome wannabe whose stage name is "Sex" and is sadly extremely delusional. I kind of love him! There's Ben from Nashville. He's only 22 and he's already married.

The 35 chosen finalists are flown in on Southwest, the people's airline, to New York for the final callback. They all gather together and cheer and whoop for Niki as she makes her entrance. Niki introduces Tyson, and all the girls go nuts for him. All the hopefuls are informed that not everyone will be making it through the day. Are they going to off some of them? That's a lot of effort for ratings. Tyson and Niki get to know each of the wannabes, but what surprises me the most is that there is a shockingly large, ugly man sitting next to Tyson and Niki and serving as co-judge. We get the usual variety in introductions, from sob stories, to mooning, to Shannon who says that she's actually a man. The soundtrack does that really funny record scratching noise when she makes that announcement.

Next, Niki and Tyson put all the teams in same-sex pairs and have them do side-by-side runway walks. Tyson demonstrates his walk, and I suddenly realize that I've been watching too much ANTM, because men's walks are very different than Ms. J's. Jacki is the only one among the entire bunch who really impresses the judges.

Based on the intros and the runway challenge, the judges must now make their first round of cuts. Tyson and Niki announce six models, three male and three female, must go home. I couldn't really catch any of the names, and honestly, I don't really care. They're going home anyway. Twenty-nine models are left.

The model wannabes are now tasked with a swimsuit challenge. Tyson helpfully reminds us that to be a supermodel, "your body gotta be right." The models twirl in front of the judges, as the judges critique their problem areas. How humiliating. Tyson yells at a dude for chewing gum while he walks down the runway.

Next, the models pick partners to do a photo shoot with. Jacki was chosen by three different guys. I didn't really like the photos, though. They have that raw quality of a paparazzi shot or an American Apparel ad.

Now, based on the swimsuit walks and the photos, the judges must cut five more models. But again, I don't care about these also-rans. What's funny is that after each round of cuts, Tyson reassures all the eliminees that their modeling careers don't necessarily end here. Come on, Tyson, don't encourage them!

The judges meet up to discuss the remaining 24 contestants. They must pick the final six guys and the final six girls, plus the three guys and three girls who will be put up in the online vote.

All of the models are sent home, and the judges have sent the chosen 12 acceptance letters to become part of Make Me A Supermodel. Meanwhile, America got to decide the final boy and the final girl through Bravo's online vote. So now, we have the 14 contestants of Make Me A Supermodel. Except that they rushed through the whole thing at the end, so I really couldn't tell who among the final 24 made it. I'm bad with both faces and names, especially when everyone is so uniformly tall and of the same level of attractiveness. Hopefully, Bravo will update their website soon, so that we'll know who made it in.


-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of Bravo)