She's Got the Look: TV Land's Guilty Pleasure

Now in its second season, this TV Land reality series follows a group of eleven 35-plus-year-old female finalists competing for a Wilhelmina modeling contract. The winner also gets a spread in Self Magazine and $100,000 in cash.

"She's Got the Look" is racy, catty, and IQ-dropping. It's the perfect guilty pleasure for our shallow times.

During the course of each hour-long episode, "She's Got The Look" shows contestants conversing in their digs, dressing rooms, and on-stage in front of a panel of judges which includes New Zealand-born supermodel Rachel Hunter. Brief personal interviews break up the action.

"She's Got The Look" follows the usual reality show format emphasizing personality conflict, anxiety, and wild behavior. Anyone who exposes him- or herself to such punishment is either masochistic, insane, or fiercely ambitious. The ladies in "She's Got the Look" display all three traits.

Episode 2 features Rachel, 37, a trim raven-haired lovely from New Zealand; Laurie, 42, a leggy blonde going through a nasty divorce; Dolores, an incredible 72, who bears a striking resemblance to Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek's original Lt. Uhura; Shelly, 39, a dark-haired beauty who becomes a verbal punching bag; and LeeAnne, 41, a gorgeous black-coiffed uber-bitch.

The contestants are all smiles and chummy when they get makeovers from an effeminate male hairdresser, but the claws come out during judging sessions before and after a photo shoot.

After getting beaten up by the judges for wearing a sky blue sweater, Shelly is attacked by Laurie as least suitable for this competition because Shelly is "emotionally fragile." That sentiment is echoed by the fiery LeeAnne, whose rouged, high cheekbones, buff bod, and ice blue eyes can raise the dead.

When LeeAnne tells the judges that she's five-foot-eight, Shelly retaliates by retorting that she, Shelly, is that height and knows that LeeAnne is shorter.

If you like catfights, you'll love "She's Got the Look." These women go after each other with a particular verve.

The "emotionally fragile" label actually fits Laurie much better than it does Shelly. Throughout the episode, there are indications that Laurie might be unstable, such as her weird pronouncements about spirituality and compulsive exercising on the bus.

Prior to the photo shoot, Rachel is concerned about having a wardrobe malfunction in her red cocktail dress but keeps it together for the duration. In the end it's Laurie, rather than self-conscious Rachel or tear-prone Shelly, who has what appears to be a meltdown.

Deciding that she no longer wants to compete, Laurie comes before the judges in frumpy attire and performs a breast-bearing striptease. Eventually persuaded to re-robe, she is unanimously voted off the show. Laurie's shrieks of joy are heard after the bizarre blonde leaves the set.

And this brought to you by the people who play reruns of "Little House on the Prairie" and "The Andy Griffith Show" every night. With the addition of "The Cougar" and "She's Got The Look" to its lineup, TV Land has fully adapted to modern times.

After getting an eyeful of Laurie-despite most of her breasts being obscured by two black bars--I'm sitting on the couch wondering why I'm watching this nonsense. The only answer I can come up with is that I'm a horny guy who's fascinated by the ridiculous.

If I were one of the judges, and there were no other women in the room except Laurie, I would have waited a bit longer than did the male judge who asked her to put her top back on. I would also have pointed to Laurie and exclaimed, "She's got the look!"

I felt like asking Laurie for her phone number but lay down until the feeling passed away. She reminds me too much of the Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction."

In all seriousness, the other contestants seemed genuinely horrified, if not traumatized, by Laurie. Yet it's hard to see how they could not have known what they were getting into. When judges ask questions designed to provoke a back alley brawl among top-model hopefuls, you can't expect sugary responses.

Like other so-called reality shows, "She's Got the Look" suffers from a dearth of realism. Does anyone in his or her right mind think that people behave the same way privately as they do in front of a national television audience?

Laurie reminds me of my high school librarian circa 1977, a slim, attractive, busty, thrity-fivish redhead who, in a braless, half-open blouse, leaned over a table in a roomful of pubescent boys for about 15 minutes while preparing costumes for a social event. The librarian knew exactly what she was doing, and I strongly suspect that Laurie was similarly well-aware.

TV Land executives were probably celebrating. Topless female meltdowns are great for ratings. It seems more than mere coincidence that Episode 3 features the women stripping to their underwear.

"She's Got the Look" is on TV Land Thursday evenings between 9 and 10 p.m. EST. Guaranteed to take 20 points off your intelligence quotient and raise your cholesterol by an equal amount.