MONDO EXTRAS

Xiomara wants us to roll the "r" in her name. In fact, she doesn't want us to say it unless we can "really say it." No one wanted that too badly, I guess.

Bethany does some karate moves. Though these are just the audition videos, somehow you know she's not going to win. Maybe it's the "Not Likely" response she got from shaking her Magic-8 Breasts.

Yoanna grouses about not having a great department store in Jacksonville, in a canny close-up shot that highlights her face and not her crooked shoulders.

Catie tells us that she's different from all of the other girls because she "hates models." Hilariously, Camille's video is next, and we'd hate models too in the highly unlikely event that she was ever going to become one.

April is "a fighter to the death," begging, "let the games begin." Meh. Too clinical.

Sara lies on her stomach, face buried in the camera, all but moaning, "I have what it takes, of course," then kissing the camera in a not-at-all-whoreish way. I'm just saying, it would be best to make sure that tape didn't get mixed up with the one labeled "Dad at the Hajj," because I've heard this is something he wouldn't want to see.

New York! Home of the bravest, finest, rudest, fastest, richest, me-ist, and top model-iest. The skyline looms as public transportation not one of these women would dare buy a designer Metrocard for zooms by. Meanwhile, twelve skinny girls wander the streets. The screen splits itself into four frames because these Mike Figgis-directed reality shows always have the auteur's personal stamp on them someplace, don't they? One of the women, possessing a southern accent and an "ask my about my children...SERIOUSLY, DO IT" t-shirt stashed away in her luggage, asks a passerby where she might find Broad Street. Wherever you are, keep going south. Unless you find yourself being Anna. And then keep going home.

Hey, what's this monkey wrench doing here? The girls, thinking they were on their way to their housing, were dead wrong. Instead, they pull up to a giant military-looking ship of some kind, replete with men in military-looking dress. This show. Something for everyone. "I decided to do something totally different this year," Tyra reminds us in a voice-over. "I just wanted to shake it up and shock the girls." Tyra's gonna surprise ya. "I'm not wasting any time. I'm throwing you straight on a runway. No training, no nothing." Onto the deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid they go. It was a ship in World War II. I went on a school trip there in eighth grade. It was boring and gray then, and it's boring and gray now. And the view from the deck sucks a lot more now than it did in the early '90s. And there's a runway set up in front of thousands of uniformed men. J. Alexander takes the ladies into a makeshift back room with what look like many expensive pieces of clothing. He adds that they all have to do their own hair and makeup in thirty minutes, and that they have three different outfits that they have to wear in the right order. They primp and change and change and primp, a countdown clock ticking down in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, like zero will be the New Year, and The Year Of The Shallow Drama Queen will commence. And one person who won't be dressed to enjoy the celebration is poor, befuddled April, who has one boot and one silver high-heeled shoe on with a minute and twenty-eight seconds to go. Jenascia tells us that she's got everything in the wrong order, and leaps in to help her new, er, "friend." Jenascia confessionalizes some time later, "I'm not really that nice of [sic] a person. I don't know what's come over me." Don't worry, Jenascia. I can't imagine it will take long for yourself to shine through. Here in this Year Of The Shallow Drama Queen, you'll be apt to forget auld acquaintances in no time, I'm sure.