The aerial shots of Cape Town are truly beautifully done.
Sadly, that's all that beautiful about Africa's Next Top Model on AfricaMagic.
The reality show executive produced by Gavin Wratten, Oluchi Ongweagba-Orlandi and Bola Atta based on Tyra Bank's America Next Top Model comes across as a dim "re-enactment" and runs like a cookie-cutter, cardboard cut-out of Idols in terms of cuts and edits, scenes, even reality narrative.
Instead of fresh, new and interesting viewers get a showcase of more of the by now stale and histrionic antics of contestants falling on the floor, teary close-ups and temperamental television melodrama aided by shaky handycam-in-your-your face moments.
Sprinkle in a bit of self-entitled production values like posing among the poor (and goats) in Cape Town, and you've got one more crass made-for-television competition for the continent.
No screeners, previews or episode synopsis were made available to TV critics by M-Net or the AfricaMagic division so pre-watching wasn't possible - but watching the first episode on television on Sunday evening, it's evident that something is clearly wrong with Africa's Next Top Model's lighting of the show.
Shadows, darkness and grey tones prevail - ironic given that the show is supposedly a "model finder" show and supposed to showcase the search for purported standards of beauty. How to see that if you can't properly see?
Add the shakey handycam work and the show isn't doing itself any favours in the professional production department. When a model breaks down in tears, juts out a hand to the camera, says "stop it" but the camera mercilessly keeps rolling (and of course with the footage left in), Africa's Next Top Model show you exactly what kind of show it is (and is going to be).
The slightly off production values in almost every scene gives Africa's Next Top Model the feel of a rushed job - as if the producers struggled to get it done and are going for the best the can do, although it's not actually the best that would have been possible.
Compared to something like last year's The Top Billing Presenter Search, also based in Cape Town, also with contestants living together and doing challenges as they are eliminated, Africa's Next Top Model looks half-baked.
Interestingly all the girls are paper thin with colour hair, with weaves and affected speech ("These b*tches have got to go!") on full display.
The show's name is Africa's Next Top Model yet none of the 12 contestants seem really representative of how the majority of women on the African continent really looks. Out of South Africa's three contestants, two are white and blond - once again, not representative of Africa or South Africa.)
Oluchi Ongweagba-Orlandi in her shy behaviour and mannerisms with a tendency to turn inward on herself is the anointed main presenter, host and one of the judges. Yet she doesn't come across as empowered, bold and eloquent enough for (this kind of ) TV work.
Africa's Next Top Model is another local adaptation of an international format. The makers behind it though seems to forget that viewers have seen the American original.
Whether you want viewers to, or not, they're inevitably going to compare your very dated 1970's looking Camps Bay house to what they've seen on the American version. They're going to want to see Oluchi not slouch and sit upright and poised like Tyra Banks. The list of no-no's goes on.
Watching Africa's Next Top Model's first episode produced by Nevermachine, pottle productions and Lulu Productions was a disappointment. It could improve, but with the plethora of choices of have-to-watch television out there, you can safely keep Africa's Next Top Model off of your list from the start.
