The CW debuts its new series The Beautiful Life, starring such stars as Mischa Barton, Sara Paxton and Corbin Bleu, Sept. 16 at 9 p.m. The following are reviews from TV critics around the Web, compiled by B&C.
“The CW has found the perfect series in The Beautiful Life: TBL to represent the youth-oriented, hot-body, glitzy direction the network has taken with its recent programming. TBL combines the hot fashions and near-naked bodies of America’s Next Top Model with the soap opera plotlines of Gossip Girl.”
Rick Bentley — The Fresno Bee
“The Beautiful Life is easily the least distinctive of the CW’s new dramas, a brazen attempt to piggyback on America’s Next Top Model’s spindly legs with an Ashton Kutcher-produced drama (doesn’t that dude ever sleep?) set in the lavish world of the runway.”
Brian Lowry — Daily Variety
“The Beautiful Life, in short, is hopelessly trashy melodrama about hopelessly trashy people. But Paxton, as a tougher-than-she-looks kid with a dark past, and Hollingsworth, as a callow Iowa farm boy trying to make it in the big city, are so unexpectedly affecting that you may find yourself sucked into the show against your will.”
Glenn Garvin, The Dallas Morning News
“The Beautiful Life strives to undo all the advancements Project Runway and the recently released documentary The September Issue have made to spin fashion as a business populated not entirely by frivolous idiots but rather by passionate, even semi-serious people committed to Hard Work. Here, the hard work is all in makeup application.”
Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times
“TBL is exactly what you’d expect it to be: lots of glitz and glamour and too much makeup as well as the ability to turn a skinny waif’s march down an only slightly less-skinny path into high drama.”
Randee Dawn — The Hollywood Reporter
