New York City. Beautiful people. Fashion. Glamour. Drama. Gossip. Sounds like an all-too-familiar concoction from the CW factory, right? And while the premier of “The Beautiful Life: TBL” on the CW last night did come with a cast chock full of young, hot Hollywood star power, it left much to be desired in regards to originality.
Produced by Ashton Kutcher (“Punk’d”, “Beauty and the Geek”, “True Beauty”), the show centers on a group of models living in New York City in what could be nearly everyone’s dream house, with male models living on the bottom floor and females living on the top. The drama begins with a mock New York City fashion week and a Zac Posen show, which had the designer himself making a guest appearance along with his own Victorian-inspired line. The Zac Posen show is the runway debut for newcomer Raina, played by Sara Paxton (“Summerland”, Aquamarine), and when notorious catwalker/pill-popper Sonja, played by Mischa Barton, shows up for her comeback after a mysterious six-month disappearance (Rio de Janeiro? Rehab? Who knows?), the acrylic claws come out. As art often imitates life, Barton’s character mimics her own comeback into the limelight in her most buzzed about role since “The O.C.” Backstage, Posen snubs model Sonja (She gained two pounds, a modeling world travesty) in favor of Raina to model his finale dress, and in a click of a heel the new It girl is crowned.
The rest of the cast provides a conglomeration of every modeling world stereotype, including the bitchy “frenemy” Marissa (Ashley Medekwe, “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”), the freshly discovered farmboy from Iowa Chris (Ben Hollingsworth, “The Line”), and the model-wanting-to-turn-DJ Isaac (Corbin Bleu, “High School Musical”). Let’s face it, “TBL” is not going down in the history books of high art, but it is definitely following the CW soap-opera guilty pleasure recipe with a great looking cast, greater looking clothes, tons of back-stabbing and drama and an amazing line-up of future guest stars rumored to include Nina Garcia of “Project Runway” fame and even the wife of the producer, Demi Moore. The show packs a ton of plotlines into its hour premier leaving much drama to unfold. Viewers should be excited to see Sonja’s whereabouts and reasons for slipping from the spotlight, whether or not Iowa-boy Chris can conquer the big city, if Raina’s past can keep up with her accelerating future, and what pretty face and perfect bod will come out on top in the cut throat world of “TBL.”