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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Swan/Extreme Makeover

10:57 / 26.11.04

Trash TV at it's most horrific.

Extreme Makeover
Take one ugly man or woman, send them to Beverly Hills and remould their face with enough plastic to start your own processing plant. Then send them back to their family looking beautiful/distorted/like a high class hooker/pornstar (delete as appropriate).

The Swan
Which is even better in the high emotion stakes.
Take two ugly women (per week), hide them away for three months whilst their face, body, teeth and psyche is remodelled into that of a beauty queen. Put them against each other for a place in the Ultimate Beauty Pagent and simmer until crying ensues.
The best bit is at the end of each show. The women aren't allowed to look at themselves throughout the whole process until the "big reveal". Watch and weep as the girls either break down in happiness or dissolve in dismay once they see what the surgeons have done to their faces.

Recent shows have resulted in two women on seperate weeks ending up with pretty much the same face. I thought I was watching a repeat!
Last nights episode was a mixture of horror and joy. The ladies weren't ugly, they just had terrible self-confidence. A psychiatrist was all they really needed.
The first lady ended up looking about twenty years younger and perfectly natural, the sort of result you'd die for. Whilst the second lady (probably the least in need of facial surgery on the entire show) ended up looking like someone's 50 y/o mother trying to look 25. Very bad indeed. Suffice to say she didn't get through.

I'm waiting for a "revisited" series in a few years once all their surgery needs refixing... the horror!!!

Is anyone watching these shows?
Or am I just a voyeur of the ultimate reality show?

11:25 / 26.11.04

Yup i was channel hopping last night and got sucked in to 'The swan'- I am geniunely shocked at the amount of surgery being done on these people - in many cases what they actually need is a new wardrobe, work out, and maybe some councilling to sort out your self esteem.

The ironic thing was that the second girl that came out looking like a textbook surgery victim (Kylies forhead and leslie Ashes lips) and she was only 25! Then she gets cheek implants, nose job (maybe the only surgery that was justified), a face lift- Her partner disowns her and she is terrified constantly crying- at one point she said that her skin feels to thin and that its going to fall in?!!!

Then after all that the judges decide that she wasn't pretty enough after all and the other girl can go to the beauty pagent!

There is a follow up series in the making here for the car crash victims about to happen- Yup she looks plastic and has had 3 months intense surgery and workout- but she's still not pretty enough! and we all know she's got emotional issues.

I'll almost certainly get sucked in if I catch it again- but not necessarily stay in to watch it - i'd certainly watch a follow up in a couple of years- I can see it now "The Curse of The Swan" compulsive viewing for sure...

D Terminator XXXIII

11:26 / 27.11.04

It is compulsive watching.

Best. Reality show. Ever.

(How far ahead are you? I might have missed the final beauty pageant which pits the eight winners against each other, but I saw as many of the episodes as I possibly could, which includes the surprise wild card near the end)

19:29 / 27.11.04

I have nothing against Cosmetic Surgery but the Barbie Doll look that they all seem to strive for is quite scarey

There was a woman a few weeks ago who had had her chin remodelled and it looked as bad and false as Michael Jackson's Kirk Douglas image

I agree, compulsive in the horror and darkeness of it all. I sincerely believe this show is evil enough in it's shallowness to actually result in one of the contestants topping themselves. I know it doesn't make me a nice person but that is part of it's allure. There is something compulsive about watching people with worse problems than myself and the transformations are quite startling, (in an odd way) bordering on the unbelievable (though the soft focus and two inch thick mae up helps)

Scarey and I am not proud to admit my displeasure at my own sick mindset and inability to keep going back to it.
A truly horrible (but addictive) program that will sadly hasten (imo) at least one of the contestants into self harm

10:18 / 29.11.04

I think we're on episode six or seven (there's ten girls to go through right?).

I have to say despite the fact that there's going to be some major fall-out in a few years time from the surgery some of the reactions once the ladies seetheir new face and body can be heartwarming.
If you'd spent your entire life being ugly (and I mean properly ugly, not just low self-esteem) and suddenly you look like some baywatch extra (which has to be much of the motivation... the contestants aren't that subtle) you'd be overjoyed too.
So what if your lips don't move when you speak! So what if you can't feel anything below your cheeks! Now you're classed as "beautful" in a "Hollywood" sense. It's enough to make you cry.
and cry.
and cry.

Wild card eh? I wonder what that could be?