I normally ask guest critics to write the Oh Brawling Love! feature, but this week, I just had to do it myself.

That’s because I no longer hate Bravo’s Make Me a Supermodel.

After the jump, I’ll share my tangled tale.

First, let me reitereate that I “don’t hate” Make Me a Supermodel, which is not the same as loving it. If you’ve seen even fifteen seconds of a single episode, then you know that it’s a terrible series. That’s mostly because the judges, the producers, and our charming hosts Tyson Beckford and Nicole Whatsername take everything so damn seriously. As I’ve noted, Top Chef has this problem, too, but the folks on MMAS are so humorlessly arrogant that they make the stone-faced solemnity of a quickfire challenge seem like a kid’s birthday party.

I mean, just watch the following clip, where the judges critique a model who was forced to walk down the runway in a bonnet made of trash bags.

Poor Laury. You can actually see her dignity pooling at her feet. Yet does the show acknowledge that it might be ridiculous to chastise a woman for not being bitchy enough as she flounces around like Little Red Recycling Bin? No. Instead, it presents a panel of adults dressed in costume-piece sunglasses and fussy blazers who passive aggressively insult each other as they strain to prove their own superiority. You get “international model scout” Marlon (just Marlon) calling on his years of experience to discuss Laury’s walk, as though she’s wearing a damn Chanel gown.

Moments like these make me love Rupaul’s Drag Race even more, because if some queen had to strut down RuPaul’s catwalk in a Cinch Sack, Ru would not only make a joke about it, but she’d also tell a charmingly self-effacing story about her early drag days in Atlanta, when she had to wear a paper bag trimmed in measuring tape and call it “Poverty Realness.”

But even the above clip isn’t the ne plus ultra of the Make Me a Supermodel‘s audacity. No, that would be fashion photographer Perou, who is a regular judge. I’ve never encountered someone so obviously desperate to bury his self-loathing in a succession of bitter insults and aggressively idiotic fashion. Here’s a picture I took off my TV:

For a while, frankly, I was watching the series merely to sate my morbid fascination with this pretentiousness. (And to see the weekly parade of naked hunks.) I kind of hated myself for tuning in, you know?

But in the last few weeks, the judges have eliminated all the contestants who mirror the show’s own joyless sensibility, leaving only competitors who seem like actual people. Without any preening freaks around to steal their focus, folks like young Branden, with his sweetness and insecurity; sex-on-toast Jonathan, with his lovely devotion to his family; and cherubic Salome, with her aw-shucks naivete, can offset Perou with their humility and kindness.

Until they were the only ones standing, I didn’t realize how much I like the remaining contestants. Now I tune in because I want to see what happens to them, and not just because I want to gasp at their idiocy. They can’t completely overcome the show’s irritating tone, but they come close.

I especially dig the top three: Branden, Jonathon, and cocky-yet-charming Sandhurst. No matter who wins, he’ll be a decent guy, and for Make Me a Supermodel, that’s a miracle.