1. Models Aren't Bitchy To Each Other

This is probably the number one misconception about the industry. No working model would darkly threaten a newbie backstage at a fashion show with breaking "a Jimmy Choo," and nobody would fat-shame a model who couldn't fit into a dress. (A model not fitting into a dress minutes before a show wouldn't actually happen, since every runway look is fitted first to a "looks" model and then to the actual girl who'll wear it prior to the show, but even assuming someone went to their fitting and then gained an inch and a half overnight, even then, the other girls wouldn't act like she'd become invisible.) Every single one of us has in the past been found too fat in the eyes of certain clients, and every single one of us will be found physically lacking in the future, too, for as long as we stay in this industry — and what that shared reality actually builds is empathy, not derision. Once last season a designer I was working for said, aghast, "What are you, like a size two?" And as soon as the designer had left, the other girls doing their fittings both shot me looks of exasperation, resignation, and common frustration. That is what it's like, CW. Models are some of the most collegial coworkers I've ever been privileged to know.

2. Mischa Barton's Underpants

Are clearly black with leopard spots, and not a thong. In this job, those comfortable in a nude g-string need only apply. Anything more is unprofessional, for the simple reason that it might show through, or affect the lines of, the garment. Also: Where the hell is this grand backstage area, with its curtains that one can swish through so dramatically, and so privately? I want to work there, because the reality of an open warren of makeup tables and clothing racks prowled by backstage photographers who live for the model-in-a-state-of-undress shot is so comparatively unglamorous.

3. A Model Gets On Zac Posen's Runway And Freezes

We already know what Zac does when a model goes off-script in a show. (He handles perceived insubordination about as well as David O Russell.)

4. Mischa Barton Is Already Wearing Makeup On Her Way To The Fashion Show

Sure, it's television, she has to wear something on her face — going without any makeup at all would be a tad too much verisimilitude for the CW network's soapy, softly-lit tastes. But why not give her a natural looking base and some mascara? Nobody goes to a show wearing her own makeup, let alone smoky black InDaClub eyeliner and shadow out to her temples, because it's just going to get taken off. And with a burning, stinging, rough-as-hell M.A.C. wipe to boot. (I once had a makeup artist tell me he wouldn't wipe his floor with a M.A.C. wipe, even as he held a box of them out to me.) Models wear inches of makeup when we work — and fashion week mandates constant shoveling on and scraping off — so we all like to let our skin be as untouched as possible when we have the option. Plus, she's wearing nailpolish. Unless it's from another show that you have just come from — and from what I gather of the "plot" here, Barton's character is some hot-shot model on her comeback, rushing to the show straight from JFK — that's a no-no. Your hair, skin and nails belong to the client for the duration of the job, and all had better show up clean and product-free.

One Thing It Gets Right:

A model with a penchant for uppers: how I wish that didn't sound familiar. Unfortunately, an Adderall and an apple a day make you feel like you can take on the world. And as long as some designers will balk at dressing "a size two," there'll be demand for that particular feeling of unhungry energy.

The Beautiful Life: This Fall On The CW [YouTube]

The juicy stuff. The scandalous stuff. Who showed up late and bitchy for her cover shoot? Who had to have Evian for her lap dog? Which editor is generally hated for her negative attitude? Who is ultimately responsible for the epic amount of Photoshopping that goes on to create a cover "image"? What do the photographs of the women on the covers of these magazines look like before they are tampered with? (Well, we have an answer for that.) The chances that we'll see any of this stuff is as slim as the waists they whittle on the covers of Elle and Marie Claire.

Having worked in magazines for 10 years, I was privy to all kinds of tantalizing secrets: A friend at a rival teen mag witnessed breast augmentation scars while a certain pop star was changing at a photo shoot. A member of a boy band confessed he threw away his underwear after wearing it once. I walked into an interview with a popular recording artist, who had a major radio hit, to find the conference room at the record label completely filled with marijuana smoke. And I was small time! Imagine the stories the folks at Marie Claire could tell. Instead, Running In Heels will be an attempt to "uncover what it means to be a working woman in the cut-throat, exhilarating world of a top fashion and beauty magazine," which means we'll probably see, well, women running in heels. Which we saw when The Devil Wears Prada came out, two years ago.

Mags Go From Spreads to Screens [AdAge]
Marie Claire, Style Net to Create Reality Series [Folio]

Earlier: Here's Our Winner: Redbook Shatters Our Faith In, Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

Now we have 90210. And, new on the CW: Privileged. As Robert Bianco writes for USA Today: "What an odd America CW inhabits. As far as CW is concerned these days, we all live in a land where most everyone is white, wealthy and incredibly, well, privileged." But one of the most popular shows on the CW has a diverse mix of racial and socio-economic backgrounds, with men, women, blacks, whites, Latins, gays, straights and "fiercees" all working together: America's Next Top Model.

It's not strange that Tyra's show appeals to women of all demographics — my mom loves it, and it definitely has a strong teen following — because it's campy fun while still showcasing real human personalities faced with real challenges. Not the ridiculous photo shoots: The tasks that teach the contestants things like honesty, confidence and self-awareness. Of course, the makeup and pretty clothes can't be denied.

But makeup and pretty clothes aren't enough, which is why Privileged seems to fall flat. (USA Today's Bianco calls it "a second-rate imitation" of Gossip Girl, with "clunky jokes, overwrought performances and a tone that implies we're actually supposed to care.") As for 90210, Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker calls it the "Sarah Palin" of TV Shows: "Its main purpose is to remind you of a trusty old product while adding some new vigor and soap opera to the cultural discourse." (Meanwhile, Gossip Girl is earning pretty good ratings so far this season.)

But the real question is: Why can't the CW network take some of the multi-culti, LBGT-friendly vibes Tyra brings to America's Next Top Model and sprinkle them in the rest of the whitewashed (except for Everybody Hates Chris) prime time programming? CW network president Dawn Ostroff tells AdAge that she is looking for a new head of reality. And she says: "Our primary goal each season is to develop shows that fit with the CW's brand identity, connect with our core female viewers and help create audience flow across the week. And 90210 accomplished each those perfectly." Hear that? Adopted black kids (who happen to be jocks!) are "perfect."

'Privileged': The Kids Are All White, And Kind Of Shallow, Too [USA Today]
Family Drama, the CW Way [AdAge]
CW Dazzles in Prime With Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill [MediaWeek]
90210 Review [EW]

Young women. Just call it Chick World. Female-friendly programming is what the CW is all about now. "We have talked about building a brand, about having flow," Ms. Ostroff explains. So wrestling show Friday Night Smackdown has been canceled. This fall, 90201, fashion-reality show Stylista and Valentine, a new hour-long romantic comedy about Greek gods playing cupid, will build on the audience drawn in by Gossip Girl and America's Next Top Model. The network is also going to launch its fall season earlier: September 1, three weeks earlier than other networks.

Lifetime, which calls itself the network for women, has changed from its previous Not Without My Daughter victim TV formula to a new bride-centric blueprint. CW's trying to lure "young women" with sex, scandal and fashion instead of crime and nuptials. (As a fan of GG and ANTM, I have no problem with this.) But: Do you think it will work? Will women flock to the CW? And if you were a woman running a network aimed at women, what shows would you greenlight?

CW Focuses On Young Women [Forbes]
Innovation At The CW [Crime Scene Improvisation]
Related: Gossip Girl Taking It To Another Level [TVGasm]

LA Times:

If J.D. Salinger and Jackie Collins had a love child, she would be writing for 'Gossip Girl.' And although the [books on which the series is based] may not have quite captured the lush, almost fetishized fascination of prep school youth seen in 'The Catcher in the Rye,' the television version does...'A Separate Peace' on pheromones for the Information Age, 'Gossip Girl' is eye candy, and mind candy, as pretty as a perfectly prepared martini — one that some nasty, picture-perfect have-it-all may or may not have drugged. Just for the occasion.

NY Times:

It seems preposterous even to type the following sentence: The television version of 'Gossip Girl' on CW tonight does not quite live up to the novels... CW specializes in young-adult television, and certain public-trust habits are hard to break, like enriching spoiled, bratty characters with poignant back stories to make them more sympathetic...That 'Gossip Girl' novels have no underlying moral lesson is exactly the point; the tale of Hansel and Gretel has no redeeming social message either, except perhaps to beware of candy.

USA Today:

All fantasies are not for all people. Take 'Gossip Girl', a praiseworthy example of one of TV's more derided genres: the teen soap....[The show] knows who it's trying to please and what it takes to please them... As is common with teen soaps, the behavior is often more believable than the dialogue and the attitudes. But soap fans will likely be pleasantly surprised by how much 'Gossip' gets right...

Washington Post:

[I]n the CW's delicious new drama series 'Gossip Girl'... Josh Schwartz, who served up the canceled 'O.C.', carries on the legacy of that West Coast soap opera and perhaps turns it up a notch with both drama and sheer teen-soapy goodness... At times, it's overboard and maybe a bit giggle-inducing, like watching little kids play dress-up. But overboard is exactly where 'Gossip Girl' wants to be — and what viewers must embrace when taking the guilty plunge.

Boston Globe:

The CW's 'Gossip Girl' makes 'The O.C.', which debuted in 2003, look like innocent nostalgia... Ah, life was so simple back then....In the parallel world of celebrity, [the characters of 'Gossip Girl'] are Paris Hiltons... And, Lord help me, I loved spending an hour hating them, their pedigrees, and their unlimited credit cards. It was like studying the peculiar mating rituals and shopping habits of the species Manhattanus Elitus.

Chicago Tribune:

Why is 'Gossip Girl' so depressing? [The show] has many of the makings of an escapist soap: rich kids, a snooty private school, a Manhattan setting and lots of melodrama at swanky parties... Yet the first episode of 'Gossip Girl' is strangely deflating. This show posits that teens... live in an environment so competitive that the most ravenous shark might feel a twinge of pity for them. Their parents are unsympathetic and self-absorbed; their friendships exist solely as a means of establishing or reinforcing the pecking order; even the sex on the show — and there's a good amount of sex or near-sex — is either sadly mechanical or imbued with more than a hint of nasty violence.