Speaking of the season, the CW posted their Fall Schedule, and as predicted, Reaper and Privileged are no where to be seen.

Here’s that we have in store come Fall (all times are ET):

Monday
8:00 pm Gossip Girl
9:00 pm One Tree Hill

Tuesday
8:00 pm 90210
9:00 pm Melrose Place (NEW)

Wednesday
8:00 pm America’s Next Top Model
9:00 pm Beautiful Life (NEW)

Thursday
8:00 pm Vampire Diaries (NEW)
9:00 pm Supernatural

Friday
8:00 pm Smallville
9:00 pm Top Model encore

I’m not crazy about them moving Smallville to a Friday night death spot, but I’m guessing they’re pretty much done with the show and figure it will just fade away here.

There are three new shows, the Melrose Place remake, Beautiful Life and Vampire Diaries. I guess everyone wants to get on the Twilight bandwagon. I hope Vampire Diaries is better than Twilight. I mean lots and lots better. Maybe I should read the books. No, cause then I’ll probably be even more disappointed. Why couldn’t the CW just have picked up Moonlight from CBS last year if they wanted to do a vampire show? Whatever.

If the success of the re-vamped (get it?) 90210 is anything to go by, the new Melrose Place will probably be a hit. I haven’t read much about Beautiful Life, but from what I gather it’s an Ashton Kutcher baby, which probably means its already starting out life well. Its about the behind the scenes life of models. Cause you know, TV isn’t already filled with nasty, rich beautiful people.

When I get a chance, I’ll try to give you all the info on each one of the three new shows. Honestly, I’ll probably watch all three of them. At least for a few weeks.

So instead of my usual play-by-play recap, I’m just going to babble a little about what happened. Since this was the finale ep, one person was eliminated half-way through, after the CoverGirl commercial and photo shoot. It suddenly dawned on me that the grand prize there was having your picture in Walmart stores across the country. Yoo Hoo! But not really. Honestly, I’m happy for my picture to stay out of Walmart.

Even though Aminat clearly had the best commercial, she did not photograph well and she was sent home first. At this point, it became pretty clear to me who was going to win, mostly just because they kept giving her passes, and that was Teyona. She had the worst commercial by a mile, but they made excuses for her, saying she let her nerves get the best of her.

Teyona and Allison, who managed to produce both a good pic and a good commercial, went on to the final challenge, a fashion show. Allison really surprised me when she stepped up to the plate and delivered. Her walk has never been her strongest asset, but she did a great job, even if she looked a bit like she was hurrying at first. Teyona, however, has a strong walk, but I didn’t feel like she had much connection to the audience.

The final segment of the show, where they were all covered in grease and rolling around on the floor with about a dozen other people was just weird for me. But then I really don’t get high fashion, I guess. Unless its supposed to mean that they’ve all been smoking something.

In the final elimination, Allison was sent home and Teyona was crowned America’s Next Top Model for cycle 12.

One last little bit of interesting news. I just heard that Paula Porizkova was fired from the show and won’t be back for the next cycle. And here I was just starting to like her. Oh, I also read that Thalia was pregnant!! Remember her, with all the burn scars? It’s crazy, cause she had been told she would not be able to have children. I guess it’s good news, but its too bad she’s only 18.

The challenge is to dance the samba with a partner, as though they were at a photo shoot. The prize is $7000 worth of jewelry. Aminat and Celia were the best, and Allison and Teyona were not so good. Celia was the winner, which surprised me, cause I thought for sure it was Aminat. The jewelry consisted of one pair of earrings and a necklace. If that’s $7000 worth, I’m glad I don’t wear jewelry.

For the photo shoot, the girls are given really wild hair and makeup. Then they are driven out of the city for about two hours, into the jungle. They find out that Tyra is going to be the photographer. The girls are to be birds, so they are dressed with feathers. I do wonder what they are selling, since Allison, the first one out, is dressed in a white corset, red painties, a black feathery bra and yellow heels.

The shoot did look interesting, but I would not have been happy standing around in the jungle, with all the bugs and whatever. I am not a fan of creepy, crawly stuff. The pictures looked very cool, but then Tyra always does a great job.

Going into panel, the girls are called in this order: Allison, Teyona. The bottom two are: Aminat and Celia. Tyra tells them: They both have something in common, strength from the neck down. Aminat has a problem with the way light hits her face in photos; Celia’s face is strong but maybe too mature. Who stays in the competition: Aminat.

Celia goes home. Just when I was thinking she might actually win, too.

I have to say one of the things that makes me crazy is how the designers want these girls to all be so excessively tall and thin. I mean, I get it, that’s modeling, but in this day and age, shouldn’t we be past a lot of these silly stereotypes. I just get aggravated that designs don’t make clothes for normal people. Apparently, sales aren’t the issue here, because it seems to me that if you want to sell stuff, you should make it for the vast majority of people.

The girls seemed to make a lot of mistakes. Fo told everyone she was short and she didn’t keep track of the time, Teyona kept leaving places if someone got there before her so she didn’t get to too many go-sees, Allison kept telling everyone how shy and clumsy she was. Celia came back about 2 minutes after the time and Fo was 20 minutes late, so they were both disqualified. The other girls got to go back by helicopter. The winner of the challenge is Teyona, who wins a piece from every collection.

The photo shoot today is at the beach in swimsuits - with Nigel Barker - in a crowd of local people, not models. I think I would hate that, because I’d hate to be corrected in front of a bunch of strangers. Especially if I had to touch them. Plus, their butts kept hanging out. (And one more thing, if Nigel thinks Teyona doesn’t have the best swimsuit body, remind me to never go anywhere near him in the summer. Ever.)

I have to honest and say I was distracted during the part where they show the girls their pictures, so I didn’t really get a good look at them. So, moving on.

Into eliminations, the girls are called in this order: Teyona, Allison, Aminat. The bottom two are: Celia and Fo. Tyra tells them: They both have something in common - a problem. Celia is too old at 25 and Fo is too short at 5′8″. But you have to get around that, by being amazing every week and not giving them that excuse.

Who goes home? Fo. Well, I know the other girls are not gonna be happy with that cause they really wanted to get rid of Celia.

Carmen Miranda

The girls are then styled like Carmen Miranda and are told to bring the sex appeal. Natalie’s happy, cause apparently she considers that sex appeal is all she has to offer. Scarily, the girls barely seem to know who Carmen Miranda is or to know the Chiquita Banana song. (I know it!)

The girls go into panel and we get a look at their pics. Honestly, by this point in the competition, I’d expect them to be better. (ANTM is in over 120 countries. Do they all air twice a year? Does the world need 240 more top models every year?) The judges tell Aminat that she is boring. Natalie talks back and says that Jay told her to pose the same way for all 50 frames. Celia is missing the spark. Allison was probably one of the few that looked good. Fo looked more like Carmen Miranda than a model. Teyona looked like Carmen Miranda with attitude.

Into eliminations, the girls are called in this order: Allison, Teyona, Fo, Celia. The bottom two are: Aminat and Natalie. Tyra tells them: Natalie is one of the prettiest girls in the bunch and an obvious model, but she is uninspiring; Aminat has the best body in the group, but she thinks she is doing more than she really is doing. Who stays? Aminat.

Natalie goes home and I’m glad, cause I never really liked her attitude.

The winner was Teyona, who will be in Seventeen Magazine’s June issue and gets to pick two friends. She chooses Celia and Aminat.

The girls then get set up for a photo shoot and are joined by Ciara, who apparently is some amazingly well known R&B singer. I’ve never heard of her, but then I’m not a fan of popular music. Something about a person with only one name makes me think, “stuck in the eighties, much?” But whatever.

Jay has to have a conversation with London about how much weight she’s gained. Honestly, it’s not like she’s fat or anything and ten pounds doesn’t sound like that much to me. I think I could gain that much on a good sized lunch. But I guess when you’re a model, there’s a different standard to follow. I have a question. Does anyone else think London looks a lot like Silver (Jessica Stroup) from 90210? Seriously, look at the two of them side by side.

Just going into judging, the girls are told that after the elimination, the remaining six contestants are going to Brazil!

On to eliminations, the girls are called in this order: Teyona, Fo, Natalie, Celia, Allison. The bottom two are: London and Aminat. Tyra tells them: Aminat has a beautiful body, skin and face, but maybe she can only do runway modeling; London has the strongest bone structure and always smiles with her eyes, but that isn’t captured on film. Who goes to Brazil? Aminat. London is going home, which makes me sad, cause she was one of my favorites.

Now that the warmer weather is getting here, too, I know we all need to drop a few pounds. I’ve put one more than a few over the winter and its definitely time to pull out my exercise DVDs and get started! Of course, along with exercise, a good eating plan is essential. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this or not, but I’m actually an Herbalife distributor and right now, many of my customers are ordering products to take off those extra pounds. Since I have to put a big order in anyway, I thought I’d throw my email address out there for anyone who is interested in getting some products shipped directly to them.

Probably, for someone just starting out, or who is looking to lose 5-10 lbs in the next month, a QuickStart program would be perfect. The QuickStart consists of four products, Formula 1 Nutritional Shake Mix, Formula 2 Multivitamin Complex, Cell Activator and Herbal Concentrate. The total cost, with shipping, is $106.00 (USD).

Obviously, there are a lot of other options, so if you are interested, please contact me at ToniSellsHerbalife@gmail.com. Let me know how much weight you’d like to lose, provide contact information and then we can chat about what you need. I definitely think that the QuickStart is a great place for anyone to start, however, cause it’s inexpensive and it can help you to get going and lose that weight.

I’m putting the order in by Friday of this week, so please contact me as soon as possible.

Their first lesson is with Paulina Porizkova who has them say a line in a certain way, pitifully, threateningly, arrogantly, etc. They pretty much all sucked. Well maybe one or two of them were OK. Then they are given a challenge, a scene they have to act out. But not alone! They are acting out their scene with Clay Aiken. His hair looks way better than it did the last time I saw him. He wasn’t a bad actor, actually. The girls were a little sad, though. London was the winner of $5,000 of Joe’s Jeans. They were all pretty excited, but I’ve never heard of Joe’s Jeans, so it meant nothing to me. The sad part was that London talked about how she was struggling with her weight and some of the jeans didn’t fit.

The girls then meet with McKey to get ready for their CoverGirl commercial. They are divided into two groups that have to work together. If you’re asking me, the girls did OK, but none of them was that amazing. Maybe Celia, she looked pretty comfortable. Tahlia did badly, she just doesn’t seem to have any confidence, and she doesn’t let any of her personality show.

One thing I didn’t get was when the judges ragged on Allison for wearing a dress twice (the last time she wore it was back in week 1). Yikes! I guess in fashion you have to have a big budget for lots and lots of clothes. And a really big closet. They made her change clothes with Teyona.

Onto eliminations, the girls are called in this order: Celia, Natalie, Teyona, Fo, London, Aminat.

The bottom two are: Allison and Tahlia.

Tyra tells them: Allison is one of the most editorial, high fashion looks, but she is not versital; and Tahlia has the right look for CoverGirl and she takes great pics, but they think she may not love the camera. Allison stays and Tahlia goes. I guess it was the right decision, but I was a little disappointed.

I know there was another one hour recap special which followed this week’s ep, but since I was already DVRing Lost and American Idol, I just couldn’t watch it. I always hate the recaps anyway.

The girls are then tutored by Beth Stern (wife of Howard Stern, who is apparently also a model) in how to get certain expressions on their faces by looking at themselves in the mirror. Then they have a challenge where they have to stand behind life sized carboard cut outs of Tyra and make their expression based on what the expression was they think Tyra was making in those pictures. That does make sense. Just read it again.

The winner of the challenge is Natalie. I’m not crazy about her looks, she’s just too Slavic looking, not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not my idea of what a model should look like.

Tahlia then quietly confronts Celia and tells her how humiliated she was about what happened. Celia apologizes for embarrassing her, and says she just wanted Tyra to know what was going on and that she is positive she is going home now because of what she did.

In the photo shoot, they each have a color splashed across their face, hair and shoulder area, and they have to protray that color. Um, what? They are pink (Allison), green (Aminat), purple (Tahlia), yellow (Teyona), red (Fo), blue (London), orange (Natalie), white (Sandra), gray (Celia).

At the judging, the pics look interesting. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I actually liked them.

Into panel, the girls are called in this order: Fo, Teyona, Tahlia, Aminat, Allison, Natalie, London. The bottom two are: Celia and Sandra. Tyra tells them: Sandra is a lovely girl with beautiful pictures, but they are always profiles and this week her straight on pic was not too good; Celia takes gorgeous pics every week and has some of the strongest style in the competition, but what she did last week was not very beautiful, cause she threw someone under the bus. Celia stays, hopefully she learned her lesson.

Sandra goes. I’m really good with this, cause I never liked her that much and I was ready to lose her a few weeks ago. As she is leaving, she is still insisting she’s better than all the others. Yeah, that makes you look good.

The ep starts out with all the girls complaining about how Sandra’s pic was not the best. Then they are visited by Toccara from Cycle 3. I really liked her. Toccara brings them some clothes as presents and then they have a sleepover while she talks to the models about personality and confidence.

Then they meet with Benny Ninja who talks to the chicks about posing and confidence. Their challenge is then to have a pose off with a live audience. Celia was the winner and she really did look great.

Next they have a photo shoot at Ellis Island, using old film with a long exposure, posing as immigrants with Benny as their husband and some children.

After all the cycles of this show that I’ve seen, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore when the person who is the worst is the one who thinks she’s the best. But sometimes I wonder if any of these girls have ever watched the show before, when they start acting all ridiculous and like they are better than everyone else. I am referring here, mostly to Sandra, but she’s not the only one with a ‘tude. Just the one who is annoying me the most this week.

The pics from the shoot came out looking really cool. I love that old fashioned look.

Going into panel, the girls are called in this order: Tahlia, Teyona, Allison, Natalie, London, Aminat, Celia, Fo. The bottom two are Sandra and Kortnie. Tyra tells them: Its interesting that its the two of them cause they are both so pretty; Kortnie, when they are in person with her she has such an alertness, but her pictures don’t have that; Sandra is a disappointment because she is just resting on being pretty and Benny Ninja said her performance was disappointing.

So who stays: Sandra. Oh, yuck! But Kortnie is gone and I’m really OK with that.

Then Celia gets up and says that Tahlia told them she did not want to be in the competition and that its unfair for Kortnie to go home when Tahlia doesn’t want to be there. Tyra puts her right back in place. Good old Tyra. I never thought of Celia as a trouble maker before, but she really should have kept her mouth shut and minded her own business.