Tyra Banks is a few years late on the new millennium craze, but it didn't stop the cheese factor from overpowering Cycle 11's two-hour season premiere of America's Next Top Model. Tyra and her top model crew ventured back to Tyra's modeling debut locale of sunny Los Angeles, California to pick this season's 14 contestants.

The "Top Model Institute of Technology" came fully equipped with body scanners to judge the girls' appearances and J. Alexander and Jay Manuel dressed in silver dorky space suits. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the institute of modeling technology popped out its idea of modeling perfection - Tyra Banks. The potential contestants screamed and were practically brought to tears at the sight of Tyra. One girl described Tyra as "so hot and tall!" Most non model wannabes accepted that Tyra was crazy a few seasons back and her robot-technology antics weren't necessarily "hot and tall," just humorous.

The initial interviews led to some surprising discoveries about the girls. The most shocking revelation was about 22-year-old Isis. She admitted openly that she was born a man physically, but everything else was all woman. The transgender contestant brought out the nasty side of some other girls who commented that America's Next Top Model would not be won by a "drag queen." Isis, however, told Tyra that she'd be willing to have the surgery to make her completely woman which I'm assuming will happen; if Top Model can pay for former winner Danielle Evans to have a gap in her teeth closed, I'm sure any "imperfection" can be taken care of. Most of the other girls didn't have a big secret like Isis, but they definitely did have quirks. Clark, 19, from South Carolina, established herself as the token bitch. Nineteen-year-old Elina expressed her opinions about society quite openly admitting she is a vegan and loves who she loves - regardless of sex or gender. One girl was Mormon, another Harvard educated, another had tried out for ANTM over 30 times, and most couldn't name any fashion models or designers, which seemed to upset poor Tyra.

The 33 phase one finalists were narrowed down to 20 after the body scans and interviews with Tyra, Jay and J. Alexander, leaving many girls heartbroken and teary-eyed. Phase two moved into a photo shoot with the girls wearing shiny blue body suits. Ultimately the 20 were then narrowed down to 14 completing phase one of the competition and the first hour of the two hour premiere: Marjorie, Brittany S., Brittany R., Brittney B., Clark, Hannah, Elina, Isis, Sheena, Joslyn, Analeigh, Samantha, Lauren Brie and Nikeysha. Of the 14, two of the Brittany's had to change their name; Brittany S. to McKey and Brittany B to Sharaun in order to prevent a double name crisis.

The second hour was like a regular episode of ANTM, including a challenge and a photo shoot. While there was no challenge winner, the girls had to give the judges (Nigel Barker, J. Alexander, Paulina Porizkova, and Jay Manuel) a good first impression to save them from elimination later. The girl with the worst impression? Sharaun. Sharaun introduced herself to every judge the exact same way. "I am America's Next Top Model." Marjorie, the French home-schooled sweetheart, was a jumble of nerves while Joslyn seemed to have some great connection between J and Tyra. Just the thought of another Tyra Banks' in this world scares me a tad.

The photo shoot was emphasizing this year's presidential election with hot button issues being the subject of each individual picture. Mike Rosenthal photographed the girls while they attempted to make voting look sexy. Marjorie was first to be shot, given the subject of immigration probably due to her French background. First was her favorite position all throughout the evening; despite her nervous conversations with the judges they all decided she took the best picture and that it would be displayed in the LA mansion the rest of the week.

Clark was given the subject of bureaucracy for her photo shoot. The Top Model wannabe didn't know what the word bureaucracy meant. She asked other contestants but none of them seemed to know either. For future reference, Clark, the American Heritage Dictionary defines bureaucracy as the following: Administration of a government chiefly through bureaus or departments staffed with non-elected officials.

Isis was given the issue of privacy, again no doubt, because of her personal background. A few of the other girls were supposed to be behind her voting booth, as extras, and they threw non-stop bitchery her way making fun of her by saying she needed to shave. Isis may not be the prettiest girl in the world, but primetime television isn't the place to express intolerance; unless that is why ANTM wanted her on the show in the first place - America does love drama and can't resist good cat fight.

Click the pics for America's Next Top Model gallery:

Other issues covered in the photographs were foreign policy, energy, environment, healthcare, unemployment, homeland security, military, economy, education and cloning.

The judges decided Nikeysha's representation of cloning had horrible leg positioning that was not up to model standard and Sharaun's image of homeland security wasn't good enough to cover up her bad impression, leaving both in the bottom two. Even though Nikeysha interrupted the judges (which we all wish we could sometimes) she managed to continue on and still be in the running to become America's Next Top Model. Sharaun, on the other hand, dropped to the floor crying and could barely even hug Tyra goodbye. Guess she was not America's Next Top Model after all.

Give us your thoughts on this episode and check back every weekly for America's Next Top Model Recaps.

Story by Beth Wickman
Starpulse contributing writer