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The first new episode of America's Next Top Model aired tonight and it looks to be another brilliant season. I do not understand why I am the only person I know watching this show. It's far and away the best reality show out there.

This time they showed part of the casting process in the first episode. Which is a trend from Real World that I'm not crazy about, it just muddies the water by introducing a lot of people you aren't ever going to see again. But on the other hand it was fun to see the audition interviews. They made the right call by keeping the bitch who's just mean (for instance, calling the painfully thin girl "disgusting" to her face and accusing her of lying about whether she had an eating disorder), but getting rid of the bitch who started a bar fight on their first night. If they feel like they need someone to create conflict, they're better off with the one who makes people cry as opposed to the one who throws beer bottles.

The painfully thin girl (who insisted she did not have an eating disorder, but nonetheless was scary thin) did not make the cut. Frankly I think the only reason she was there was so they could get film of Tyra saying her body sends a negative message to women. They've gotten a lot of mileage in previous seasons from conflict between the Christians and the non-religious, but there were no obvious bible-thumpers yet. Though there was one girl who talked about her conversative values and wore a gown with the US Flag on it, who might fit the bill.

(On a totally unrelated note, I have to laugh whenever I see someone talk about how patriotic they are, and then show it by wearing a dress or suit made out of the flag. The vast majority of those hyper-patriotic displays of the US flag are not only tacky, but violations of the official Flag Code. Every yahoo who wears a flag shirt or attaches flags to their car windows is actually disrespecting the flag. When the car window flags were in vogue, I thought about making up little flyers with the Flag Code on them and leaving them on windshields. But that seemed too much like work. Silently snarking on them is much easier.)

The show did include the regular line-up of blandly pretty women, plus a few with one minor flaw or unusual quality (bad skin, big nose, somewhat short, etc) that will come in handy if they need an easy elimination; the plucky disabled woman (lupus last season, blindness this season); and the token plus-sized woman. Who I must say is actually large, not large-for-a-model size 8 or something, and also seems honestly happy with her body. Of course she won't win, but I read that Tyra includes at least one larger woman in every season because she wants to show young viewers that they don't have to be super-skinny to be beautiful. Then again, Tyra herself is (bizarrely) considered a bit large for modeling, so maybe a TV show set in the modeling industry isn't the best milieu to try and promote positive body images.

Alas, the episode ran a minute or two late so the DVR cut out before the preview for next week. I can't wait though. Any show that includes the line "bitch poured beer on my weave" in the very first episode has got my full attention. They're going to rerun tonight's show on Friday in anyone wants to catch up.