REALITY-TV ROUND-UP!

The last couple of weeks of reality TV have been, for lack of a better world: real. I've watched every season of America's Next Top Model, waiting for one of the "plus-sized," (real-sized, if you ask me) girls to break the top 3. I watched and watched, in vain, as winner after winner got smaller and smaller, like an advertisement for eating disorders. The last straw was when Jasleen won... she was all skin and bones.

Every cycle, the story remained the same: the full-sized girls would start off strong, and then, as the season wore on, the other (skinny) girls would pick on them until, defeated and demoralized, they were sent packing. One season even featured a group of girls telling the plus-sized model, "there will never be a full-sized model on the cover of high fashion magazines." But this season, things took a different turn...

Whitney was bubbly, beautiful and a true-competitor. And she carried it all the way through to the end, becoming ANTM's first real-sized Cover Girl.


Over on American Idol, things had been getting pretty stale: one by one, the competitors fell in David Archuletta's death march of sappy, syrupy ballads. Week after week, the Mormon Mon Chi Chi delivered the same Six Flags theme park performance, complete with Diva Sing Language (waving around erratically, pointing to the audience when he sang, "you," touching his chest earnestly when he sang the word, "me," and the like.)

But there was one, flickering hint of hope: David Cook. And unless you've been living in a cave in Afghanistan, you know that the indie rocker won the whole enchilada... by over 12 million votes. While I can't claim to love every single one of his performances, I was a fan of his style and individuality.

All in all... it's been a pretty good couple of weeks on the boob-tube. For more pictures of these two reality champs, click here.