‘Top Model’ holds finale to an hour
While this season of “America’s Next Top Model” (8 p.m., UPN) has felt like a letdown, we’ll all have to adjust to the fact that personalities like last season’s Shandi come but once in a reality TV lifetime. Nobody’s ever going to top her transformation from Rexall-shelf-stacking duckling to hot-tub-loving swan. And maybe that’s a good thing.
I have to admire “Top Model” for culminating with class and blessed brevity. The final episode, featuring the final three contestants, lasts only an hour.
Compare that with a three-hour “Survivor” finale and reunion recap. NBC will also ask “The Apprentice” fans to waste three solid hours on tomorrow’s “Apprentice” wrap-up.
Time was, you had to make a pretty good movie (say, “The Godfather”) to demand three hours of anybody’s time.
After the uninspired Ann was sent packing, the final three would-be mannequins come down to Eva, Yaya and Amanda.
Amanda had to be considered an early favorite. Her transformation from North Carolina mom to luminous Annie Lennox look-alike was spectacular. And her back-story of impending blindness only added to her allure.
But she’s clearly been in a rut of late, relying on her blond locks and radiant eyes to carry the day.
Yaya is nobody’s idea of a winner. She’s the A-student who always tries too hard and lets you know how smart she is. Yaya is the quintessential runner-up.
Eva began the competition as the perceived bad girl. Her early pact with Ann crashed and burned because Ann, the fetching jock, could not grow and change, as Eva has done, from self-described ghetto diva to a near-sophisticated lady.
Even if she wears her emotions on her sleeve and tucks her heart a tad too close to her tear ducts, Eva’s the only girl in the surviving trio to bring passion to her performance week after week.
And for that, she deserves to win.
Fifteen of the “hottest” coeds must find the “hottest” guy at a Florida college in the new reality series “BMOC” (9 p.m., WB).
Why does this leave me cold? As historian George Santayana once wrote, “Those who fail to learn from ‘Gidget’ are doomed to repeat it.”
“Tycoon Toys” (6 and 9 p.m., National Geographic Channel) looks at a very small circle of hobbyists who collect, restore and “play” with tanks, howitzers and other pieces of military hardware and artillery. As the title implies, it takes a very rich man to purchase and maintain a fleet of tanks.
While the narration occasionally flirts with whimsy, it neither celebrates nor condemns this practice.
A second helping of “Tycoon Toys” ( 7 and 10 p.m.) looks at rich guys who collect their own combat aircraft.
“Toys” would be a perfect film for a high school civics class (if they still had high school civics classes). Does the Second Amendment right to own and bear arms extend to the possession of Scud missiles? Is it in the best interests of the republic for the ultrarich to amass arsenals of mass destruction? Should the government step in? Or does the old expression “don’t tread on me” extend to one’s own tank treads?
Other highlights
Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (8 p.m., CBS): loose nukes in the former Soviet Union; marketing to children; a profile of Kevin Bacon.
The gang looks back at the comedy domain they mastered on “The Seinfeld Story” (8 p.m., NBC).
Survivors of a plane crash come to grips with their plight on a repeat of the movielike two-hour pilot of “Lost” (8 p.m., ABC).
Dr. Phil and Robin McGraw host the “Christmas in Washington 2004” concert (8 p.m., TNT).
Dennis Haysbert narrates “Secrets of Pearl Harbor” (8 and 11 p.m., Discovery).
Doug’s prejudice exposes his shortcomings on “King of Queens” (9 p.m., CBS).
Bartlet’s illness returns at a crucial summit on “The West Wing” (9 p.m., NBC).
A blood-covered murder suspect may not be what she seems on “CSI: NY” (10 p.m., CBS).
A random attack on a tourist proves anything but on “Law & Order” (10 p.m., NBC).
A mousey mom trades homes with a strict taskmaster on “Wife Swap” (10 p.m., ABC).