Tyra, Mrs. Jay - we aren’t sure why he was upgraded to Mrs. From Miss the last eight seasons, but congrats regardless -  and Mr. Jay picked their thirteen finalists for Cycle 9 of “America’s Top Model”. We must admit that there were some surprises in this crew. However, before we discuss the girls, we must mention that Tyra is spending a lot of time channeling her inner Oprah these days. Tyra, who also has a successful talk show, loves to hear the hard-luck stories of her wannabe models. Sometimes, it seems that she ain’t happy unless she gets the ladies to cry with her.

We love tears on “America’s Next Top Model”, don’t get us wrong, but only after a good catfight on the catwalk, and we certainly don’t want to hear the horror stories of girls that don’t make the cut. After poor Marvita, who’s been used and abused and bounced around from family member to family member her entire life, didn’t make it to the model house, we were afraid the girl was going to crumble. We don’t want Marvita to crumble. However, we don’t want to watch Tyra put Marvita through the moves, making her tell you her sob story and making her cry and then not give the girl a spot in the house. Shame on Tyra and the two Jays…and the CW.

Okay, now that we’ve had our say, we must tell you that the girls seem a bit boring this season. If not boring, then downright annoying. We’re not sure why Tyra picked ‘em, but we’ve seen her do magical things with contestants in the past, so we’ll give the former supermodel the benefit of the doubt.

We love Lisa. She’s got to be our number one right now. Lisa has curly hair, big brown eyes and she’s an exotic dancer who wears a bikini. The other girls think she’s nasty, but they don’t realize that Lisa’s been in bunches of foster homes and has had to crawl her way up from less than nothing. She’s trying to make something of herself. She not only has the look, but the hard luck story Tyra loves. We think this is her competition to lose.

Other girls that we’re gravitating towards include Heather, Ambreal and Sarah, the pseudo-plus-sized model. If Sarah, a 20 year old student from a small town in western Massachusetts, is plus-sized, then it’s time for us to shoot ourselves. This girl has to be a size ten at the most. Tyra mentioned to the two Jays that they might have trouble fitting Sarah into the industry. She’s too fat to be high fashion and too thin to be plus-sized. Ugh! It’ll be interesting to see if the judges can work with Sarah, or if they’ll erode her self-esteem as is usually the case with plus-sized gals on this show.

Ambreal is a student at Howard University. She’s a real live wire. She loves to laugh and has a big personality. She did several kinds of ‘walks’ for Tyra, because ‘walking is kinda her forte.’ Hehe!

Heather has Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism that, as she says, “makes her socially awkward.” Folks with Aspberger’s have difficulty with social and communication skills. Occasionally, they engage in repetitive behaviors. Heather has a refreshing modesty and sense-of-humor. She wants to be a role model for others, and well, we think that’s just great. However, we aren’t sure she’s right for this competition.

Girls we really don’t have any opinion towards include Bianca, Chantal, Kimberly, Janet and Saleisha. Bianca’s got a funky-colored do. We like that. She’s also passionate about modeling, but she’s neither here nor there…yet. Chantal is a pretty southern girl with a passion for fashion. She knows her designers, but she’s sort of an under-the-radar person. We’re not sure she’ll last. We have no opinion or intel on Kimberly, and well that might be the gal’s undoing. Right now, she’s kinda unforgettable. Hopefully, she’ll come into the spotlight soon, or she’ll be gone.

Janet seems nice. She gave Tyra a faux bikini wax, but…well, that’s about it. She also has that androgynous look Tyra seems to like. Oh yeah! She’s fearless. She’ll try anything once. Saleisha is a pretty, African-American girl next door type. She could fit in very well into the whole Cover Girl thing, but we wonder if Tyra was soft on her, despite what Tyra said to the contrary, because the girl attended her T-Zone camp when she was fourteen.

Now, these are the girls that annoy us the most: Mila, Victoria, Ebony and Jenah. Mila says she’s such a positive person and she’s always laughing, joking and smiling. We hate that. We bet Tyra does too. Victoria is a Yale student. She believes she’s smarter than all the other girls there. That may be the case, but she doesn’t have to be so smug about it. She’s also awkward and geeky. We’re not against geeks – we are geeks – but we just don’t see how she fits in with the ‘supermodel set.’

Ebony is the resident diva in the hizzouse, y’all. She’s gotten under almost everyone else’s skin. Tyra’s got her number and told her so. We’ll see if that makes Ebony change her tune, but we don’t think so. She’s got a sad story too. Her mama was a crackhead, but…you know what, it doesn’t give her the right to take her anger out on the rest of the world. Hopefully, she’ll realize that before it’s too late.

Finally, Jenah is a weird gal. She says she grew up around fashion photographers and the industry so she knows modeling. However, she’s from Farmington, CT. We’re not sure but that’s not exactly the fashion capital of the US. It’s close to NYC, but not that close. She rubbed us the wrong way, and well, we’ll just have to see if she can take direction from Mr. Jay especially. If she can, then we’ll soften towards her.

Overall, Cycle 9 looks to be a big bore. We hope improve soon or we’ll be off the cruise ship at the next port.