Last night we had a bit of a mix-up with our regular Wednesday-night group dinner, which is traditionally accompanied by a catty, judgemental viewing of ‘Top Model’.

I thought I would treat the boys and go right from getting off the train to buy Thai food at Peter Anan’s.

JVL and Aaron thought it would be nice if they brought home Chinese food.

Unable to contact them on their cell phones, and them having left me a message at the office — AFTER I’d already left for the day — we had radio silence which resulted in us having $80+ worth of cheap take-out for three people.

We were a little overwhelmed, but decided to sample some of each of the 12-courses in our “Asian fusion” cuisine and name it either Chi-Thai or Thainese. Our plates dripping with phad thai and chow mein, papaya salad and egg rolls, we staggered over to the sofa to engage in some third-level-of-hell-style gluttony and watch Tricia Helfer and her little band of ugly duckings create their extremely amateur “Canadian-eh?” parody of America’s Next Top Model.

Pipes’ Excessive Ranting about ‘Canada’s Next Top Model’: read it at your peril!

Please note: I do intend to keep watching this show every damn painful week until there’s only one woman left standing, but OMG:

1) Budget, budget, budget — I know this is their first run, and they don’t have the same kind of cashola to throw around that ANTM does, but still. Ten models, eight weeks, filmed in Victoria (aside: it was nice to see them eat at the Empress, since I’ve been there for tea) with a disco-floor photo set? The last ANTM took place in LA & freakin’ Thailand, and featured a photo shoot with elephants. They had the Wildboyz guest star. The girls won spots on ‘Veronica Mars’ and trips to luxury spas as mini-prizes. In contrast, Canada’s Next Top Model looks cheap, as do the young ladies who are on it. More on them later.

2) The host –What happened to Trisha? I think the show would do a lot better if she pretended to be sexy, sassy, take-no-prisoners Number Six from Battlestar instead of what I suppose is her own take on “personality”. She was dry like melba toast and conservative like Queen Victoria. Yelling at Tenisha for toplessness? Who CARES if a model is showing her boobs off at a shoot? Hello, it’s called NUDITY, it happens ALL THE TIME when you’re changing clothes, and it’s LEGAL IN CANADA. Trisha… are you having a memory block about doing that topless shoot for ‘Stuff’ magazine in April 2005? Because I’m not. By utterly failing to conceal her obvious boredom, condescencion and acute embarrassment at being seen in public with her mini-models, Trisha proved that she’s no Tyra.

3) The judging panel — The group shows promise: I *heart* Jeanne Beker, but they didn’t give her enough air time; I am scared to death of creepy supermodel Stacey McKenzie, heretofore known as “Manvoicedhorsefacedwomanthing”; Jay Manuel was great, bringing his much-needed professionalism and experience to the show, and I’m SO glad they showed his face during the girls’ first catwalk attempt. He looked like I felt: ready to die. His inner monologue had to be something like, “Say whaaaat?!? Bitches, please! Learn how to walk!” Where is Ms. Jay Alexander when you need her?

4) Music — in a nutshell, it sucked. The boys and I speculated on how much better CNTM would have been if they had straight-up stolen Richard Gibbs’ entire soundtrack from ‘Battlestar Galactica’: the intensely percussive pounding drum sounds when there’s a tense moment or an elimination; Middle-Eastern chord progressions and vocals during slow-motion shots of the girls; sentimental Celtic wailing when someone has to pack their bags and leave the show. As it stands, sharp-eyed Justin noted during the credits that the shitty Canada’s Next Top Model theme song was composed by Eggplant. People, they have a vegetable writing their score. Aieeee.

5) Last but not least… the Girl-Model-Wannabes — Wow. These women are not so much diamonds in the rough as tiny chips of quartz cemented in a mountain of solid granite. They have no fashion sense. They can’t walk. They can’t pose. It’s going to take some work to just get their arms and legs in sync with their torsos and skinny little heads. And there is no damn way that these are the ten best-looking women they could find for the show across Canada. My biggest question for these girls is: where is your self-esteem? Your confidence? Your chutzpah? Your cohones? WHERE IS YOUR ATTITUDE?

Heavens, I know we’re Canadians, we’re the most polite, unassuming populace on Earth yadda yadda yadda but COME ON. If you want to be a model, if you want to succeed in a cutthroat industry of any kind, if you’ve even just watched one season of ANTM you must understand that it takes verve, vivaciousness, enthusiasm, kick, passion, determination, and a little bit of pure bitch to win a contest like this. And there is virtually no evidence of those traits in any of these women. Is Sisi, who believes she will be “the bitchy one” really supposed to be Canada’s answer to Jade’s crazy-attitude-from-the-hood “biracial butterfly”? The woman doesn’t even know who Yoko Ono is. Plus, with Dawn going through scream-therapy and awkward Andrea confessing that “nobody’s ever told me I was beautiful before” to Jay, this feels more like a group hug session than a cutthroat competition for fame and glory. Work with me, ladies. Find your claws.

Another unfortunate element of watching the show that almost had me hitting the mute button is what I’d like to call the girls’ “speech impediment”. This is not analogous to ANTM’s latest top model winner Danielle and her thick Southern drawl. No, no. It’s far worse. Danielle was articulate and cogent for the most part, and when she spoke, she got her point across. The ten women on CNTM can’t go two words without inserting either “like” or “type-thing”. “So, like, Tyra, like, showed up on this amazing plane-type-thing, and she was all like, sophisticated and stuff, and I was like, ‘I need to get me some of THAT’!” What are you even SAYING? Is there a context? I don’t know!

And lastly, I was hoping for some REPRESENTATION. Those girls are NOT the best Canada can do, I am sure of it. Where is the east coast? No PEI, no New Brunswick, no Newfoundland. No prairies, Quebec or NWT/Nunavut either. Just Ontario, BC and Alberta. I know they only had the money to house/film ten girls, but still… I think they could have improved casting drastically just by having a “Canadian Idol” type casting call. But look! Every girl on the show is from an area where CityTV (who is airing the show) happens to have a market. In a less cynical light, they may simply have run out of time to look for prettier girls since the casting call started in November 2005 and the show is now filmed, edited and airing just six months later. Also, it’s possible that only aspiring BC, Alberta and Ontario models had the money and opportunity to take a chance on the casting call, since it was held exclusively in Toronto.

And that’s pretty much what I had to say about my disappointing first experience with Canada’s Next Top Model. Canada is the 11th foreign territory to customize the format, following in the footsteps of Australia, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., Thailand, the Philippines, Sweden, Norway and Denmark in licensing the rights for the Top Model show. Let’s hope they kick it up a few notches for next week, or we’ll never see a Canadian season two.