January 02, 2008

America's Most Smartest Model - Finale

It's time for the long overdue finale recap that I promised you but unfortunately, I no longer have an episode from which to pull the information to write a thoroughly entertaining synopsis.

Two nights ago, I went through the shows we've been saving on DVR to make sure I had room to save the various episodes I wanted to grab from the Twilight Zone Marathon. I discarded the AMSM finale because I figured I'd be able to watch it on the VH1 website. Boy was I wrong. I just checked the site and it's no longer available. Grumble.

My memory of the episode is spotty at best but I can give you a few highlights.

As you may recall, the two remaining models Andre Birleanu and VJ Logan had to create presentations defending why they should be America's Most Smartest Model.

The strongest point of VJ's presentation happened when he compared Andre to a Rottweiler. The judges seemed impressed at his ability to find a stock photo of a growling dog. He also apparently overcame some kind of problem with the audio on his presentation.

The strongest point of Andre's presentation was when fan favorite Jeff Pickel, previous contestant, spoke on Andre's behalf. Unfortunately, Andre became impatient and interrupted Pickel. He couldn't help himself and ultimately sabotaged himself.

In the end, VJ was chosen the winner. But the life winner is definitely Andre. He was smart enough to hire someone to set up a beautiful website that fully takes advantage of the fact that he received tons of free exposure by being on the show. VJ Logan has yet to set one up. That's just one example.

Another example - Andre isn't that good looking but he works it. That takes some kind of talent or smarts to convince people that they should hire your ugly ass to model their ridiculously fashionable and unwearable clothes. VJ is good looking already. It won't be THAT hard for him to convince people he's handsome.

But being that Andre is 29 and probably at the end of his modeling career it made sense, from a financial perspective, to award the $100,000 prize to the 21 year old at the beginning of his career.

It does make sense if you look at it that way.

But Andre was definitely the best and smartest model of that group.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's possible in a competition where the judging is absolutely subjective based on personal opinion that the judges honestly believed that VJ was the appropriate winner. It seems unlikely that any conspiracy with the sponsor occurred based on their preferences for their campaign. Since the product was "Extreme Style" it would be more likely that VO5 would have preferred Andre (with his hair grown out, which it has since the show's taping).

Anonymous said...

Two nights ago, I went through the shows we've been saving on DVR to make sure I had room to save the various episodes I wanted to grab from the Twilight Zone Marathon. I discarded the AMSM finale because I figured I'd be able to watch it on the VH1 website. Boy was I wrong. I just checked the site and it's no longer available. Grumble.

In one paragraph, you've managed to capture the 30 year decline of American TV. Twilight Zone and Rod Serling. He was an intelligent man and talented scriptwriter. AMSM and its producers -- I won't waste words to define them.

Anonymous said...

yeh, tbh i totally agree with you.
andre really should have one, he was the better model, and lets face it he was smarter than VJ aswell, like you said, the best idea VJ could come up with was comparing andre to a dog, which is a crap idea.

and andre was gorgeous in the most un-oobvious ways, it was just his persoinality & attitude that made him like that, which is what a model should be, not just a pretty face like VJ.

i'm in the uk, and they're screening the shows on tmf which is like another branch off of mtv.

http://www.mtv.co.uk/overdrive/mtv_one/id/99847

you can watch the whole series in there, if it'll work in the US i don't know.