TV REVIEW
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Catty Stylista Fits the Times
Ruthless job screening makes for entertaining viewing
By Ambreen Ali
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Posted Oct 22, 08 7:16 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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Stylista depicts fashion’s “empty ambition and distaste for civility,” but the show’s timely appeal is its “fresh resonance” during the current job market, Ginia Bellafante writes in the New York Times. In the CW series beginning tonight, 11 contestants trample and scramble to present the best breakfast arrangement to their potential boss—all for a junior editor job at Elle and a year’s free rent.
Though the cutthroat “I don’t do wheat at all” attitude of said boss, Anne Slowey, is uncharacteristic even in fashion, Slowey’s performance is Emmy-worthy. The reality-show version of The Devil Wears Prada also indulges us with characters who “thrive on confrontation” and catfight “in novel ways”—like Ashlie, the feistiest of the pack, who calls another participant “Satan’s little hand foot maiden.”