The Beautiful Life

The life of a high-fashion model appears glamorous and sexy, but as every new model quickly learns, behind the beautiful faade is a world of insecurity and cutthroat competition.
The Beautiful Life

This show has been canceled!

SYNOPSIS

The life of a high-fashion model appears glamorous and sexy, but as every new model quickly learns, behind the beautiful faade is a world of insecurity and cutthroat competition. Two teenage models who are about to discover this world for themselves are Raina Collins (Sara Paxton, "Last House on the Left"), a stunning beauty with a secret past, and Chris Andrews (Benjamin Hollingsworth, "The Line"), a strikingly handsome Iowa farm boy. When Raina makes an unforgettable impression at a show introducing the new line from designer Zac Posen (appearing in a cameo role), she steals the spotlight from her friend Sonja (Mischa Barton, "The O.C."). Sonja has been out of the country for mysterious reasons and is now desperate to reclaim her standing as the reigning supermodel. While Raina and Sonja live at the top of the fashion food chain, Chris is starting at the bottom, having just been discovered by agent Simon Lockridge (newcomer Dusan Dukic) of the Covet Modeling Agency, which is owned by former supermodel Claudia Foster (Elle Macpherson, "Friends"). At his first photo shoot, Chris' inexperience almost derails his career until Raina comes to his rescue, showing him how to relax and work the camera. That afternoon, Raina brings Chris to the "models' residence" where she lives along with other young hopefuls, including Marissa Delfina (Ashley Madekwe, "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"), Egan (Jordan Woolley, "As The World Turns"), Issac (Corbin Bleu, "High School Musical 2") and the current alpha-male-model known as Kai (Nico Tortorella, "Twelve"). At an exclusive industry party that night, Chris is again impressed by Raina's generosity when she steps aside to make sure Sonja lands a job that will resurrect her career. However, after an ugly scene with Simon, Chris is left to question whether he can survive in this world of dangerous excess and fleeting fame. THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE is from Katalyst Films in association with CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Ashton Kutcher & Jason Goldberg ("True Beauty," "Punk'd"), Karey Burke ("True Beauty"), Mike Kelley ("Swingtown," "Jericho") and Carol Barbee ("Swingtown," "Jericho"). Christian Duguay ("Coco Chanel") directed the pilot.

IMAGE GALLERY & VIDEO PREIVEWS

REVIEWS

Please note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Randi Dertzo's Take
Before viewing this pilot, I watched the pilot of The Vampire Diaries, a show targeted for a young crowd. I then sit to watch this one and once again, I find a show targeted at a young audience which I'm not in anymore. I rolled my eyes and pressed play... What can I tell you, I liked it! As it was the case with the pilot of Gossip Girl, I find a show not aimed at me which I end up liking. Maybe its because I had low expectations but I found the story that immerses us into the world of modeling. There's also good point where they can develop the story further. Sometimes a pilot is excellent but you ask yourself if this can carry on for much longer ('Cane' comes into mind). I don't think this is the case here. You have to wonder though how good it will perform in its time slot. I thnk the older audiences will flock to Criminal Minds and SVU, I don't think both Glee and this show can survive in the same timeslot. One of them will either move or get cancelled on. I haven't got around to reviewing Glee yet but from what I can read from TV Gord's review, it has a positive hype around it. I'm happy to see the premiere for this show is a week before the premiere of Cougar Town where I suspect a lot will be checking out for the return of Courtney Cox' return to TV. It's also one week prior the premieres of SVU and Criminal Minds. Glee on the other hand starts one week prior. Anyway, we'll see soon enough. :)
Rating: Limited success (Might survive a full season)
About Randi Dertzo Randi is the founder of this webvsite and co-founder of ChannelCanada.com and Viewers.ca, a discussion forum about television in Canada.

Gordon McDougall's Take
Going in, there's a lot of gossip about what's going on with this show's star, Mischa Barton. Her "illness" (which has been described as everything from a nervous breakdown to a drug overdose to a suicide attempt) has thrown the first weeks of this series' production into question. It doesn't help that the characters she has played (both here and on The O.C.) have flirted with instability. Her character, Sonja Stone, is popping pills in the first couple of minutes of the show. You have to wonder whether Barton's "mystique" is going to be an ongoing thread of undertext on this series about models (female and male) and the attempts beyond their facades to become three-dimensional people who hope to survive in their real lives. There's lots of glitz and glamor in the first few minutes, which will appeal to Gossip Girl and 90210 fans, but is it hoping to pull in a broader audience? I don't think so. At least with 90210, there's an attempt to work in the parents from time to time (the way The O.C. did). With this concept of young model-types in New York City, parents are nowhere in sight. While we've been introduced to worldly-wise Sonja, we also meet Iowa (presumably) farmboy Chris Andrews. His natural good looks and his ability to be in the right place at the right time have him falling into a modeling career of his own. Is Sonja's world destined to collide with his? Mmmm, methinks so. That also means it will collide with Raina's world. She seems to be the woman who has set her sights on young Chris (or Clark Kent, as his self-imposed mentor calls him...I guess it's okay, since Lois Lane calls the "real" Clark Kent "Smallville"), so Raina and Sonja are bound to be sworn enemies before long. Or sworn frenemies, at the very least. This show has a lot of pedigree that its publicity department can use to spread the word. Corbin Bleu from the High School Musicals is in the cast; it's written by Ashton Kutcher; and hey, isn't that Elle MacPherson playing a thinly-disguised version of herself? The question I kept asking myself is--with the glut of teen-girl shows on the air (especially on The CW)--will viewers take to this the way they have (to an extent) to Gossip Girl and 90210? With Melrose Place coming on board this fall, too, is The Beautiful Life the one that will slip through the cracks? Personally, I think so. What the other shows I've mentioned have going for them is there are actually characters on those shows who seem to like each other. The Beautiful Life (at least, on the pilot) is filled with people who are too self-absorbed to care about making friends. It's a cut-throat world in the modeling game, and I'm not sure its target audience wants to see this much grittiness. TV Gord's Verdict: If Mischa Barton's personal problems don't create a lot of intrigue around this hard-edged soap for young women, this show will fade quickly. This pilot needed some terrific twist at the end (such as the farmboy Chris turning out to be a big manipulator who only pretended to be an fresh-faced boy from Iowa). Without it, it's just another ripoff of shows that fans are already invested in.
About Gordon McDougall TVGord is a radio host at 580 CFRA in Ottawa. He does a weekly segment about TV every friday which you can hear in MP3 in the '580 CFRA Interviews' section of their website, www.cfra.com

Gordon McDougall's Take

Going in, there's a lot of gossip about what's going on with this show's star, Mischa Barton. Her "illness" (which has been described as everything from a nervous breakdown to a drug overdose to a suicide attempt) has thrown the first weeks of this series' production into question. It doesn't help that the characters she has played (both here and on The O.C.) have flirted with instability. Her character, Sonja Stone, is popping pills in the first couple of minutes of the show. You have to wonder whether Barton's "mystique" is going to be an ongoing thread of undertext on this series about models (female and male) and the attempts beyond their facades to become three-dimensional people who hope to survive in their real lives.

There's lots of glitz and glamor in the first few minutes, which will appeal to Gossip Girl and 90210 fans, but is it hoping to pull in a broader audience? I don't think so. At least with 90210, there's an attempt to work in the parents from time to time (the way The O.C. did). With this concept of young model-types in New York City, parents are nowhere in sight.

While we've been introduced to worldly-wise Sonja, we also meet Iowa (presumably) farmboy Chris Andrews. His natural good looks and his ability to be in the right place at the right time have him falling into a modeling career of his own. Is Sonja's world destined to collide with his? Mmmm, methinks so. That also means it will collide with Raina's world. She seems to be the woman who has set her sights on young Chris (or Clark Kent, as his self-imposed mentor calls him...I guess it's okay, since Lois Lane calls the "real" Clark Kent "Smallville"), so Raina and Sonja are bound to be sworn enemies before long. Or sworn frenemies, at the very least.

This show has a lot of pedigree that its publicity department can use to spread the word. Corbin Bleu from the High School Musicals is in the cast; it's written by Ashton Kutcher; and hey, isn't that Elle MacPherson playing a thinly-disguised version of herself?

The question I kept asking myself is--with the glut of teen-girl shows on the air (especially on The CW)--will viewers take to this the way they have (to an extent) to Gossip Girl and 90210? With Melrose Place coming on board this fall, too, is The Beautiful Life the one that will slip through the cracks?

Personally, I think so. What the other shows I've mentioned have going for them is there are actually characters on those shows who seem to like each other. The Beautiful Life (at least, on the pilot) is filled with people who are too self-absorbed to care about making friends. It's a cut-throat world in the modeling game, and I'm not sure its target audience wants to see this much grittiness.

TV Gord's Verdict: If Mischa Barton's personal problems don't create a lot of intrigue around this hard-edged soap for young women, this show will fade quickly. This pilot needed some terrific twist at the end (such as the farmboy Chris turning out to be a big manipulator who only pretended to be an fresh-faced boy from Iowa). Without it, it's just another ripoff of shows that fans are already invested in.

About Gordon McDougall
TVGord is a radio host at 580 CFRA in Ottawa. He does a weekly segment about TV every friday which you can hear in MP3 in the '580 CFRA Interviews' section of their website, www.cfra.com

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