One of my closest friends once tried out for America's Next Top Model and failed to make it. It doesn't help that she was well on her way towards attaining a graduate degree and had a pleasant handful of Robert Frost poems memorized. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this made her charming, intelligent and lovely -- all traits which naturally precluded her chances of being in Tyra's top 12. All for the best, I suppose, because what do you do when you've been dismissed from Top Model? You go back for more abuse.

"Modelville" is Tyra Banks' new experiment in meta-television. The show-within-a-show features Top Model losers checking into Tyra weekly to blab about living together, childhood traumas, and adventures in job-hunting while competing for a five-figure contract with beauty aid purveyor Carol's Daughter. So what happens to the unlucky quartet that fail to win the competition? By then, they could be too old for editorial or fashion modeling and may have to consider another line of work.