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A gimmick, not a strength.
The gimmick overwhelms the competition — the height restriction produces novelty but not a stronger season.
Cast climbs to fourteen, three domestic stops.
Cycle 13 is the CW era's clearest format miscalculation. The explicit height cap narrows the contestant pool in ways that limit competitive range rather than deepen it. Staying entirely domestic removes the format's strongest creative engine, and the reduction to three judges strips the critique sessions of texture. The domestic locations — LA, Las Vegas, Maui — are visually attractive but not editorial in the way the international legs consistently were.
The #15 slot.
Slot #15 of 24 in the America's Next Top Model Editor's Canon. Cycle 13 is the show's clearest format miscalculation of the CW era. The explicit height cap produces novelty but not a stronger competition — restricting the contestant pool by a single physical criterion narrows rather than deepens the competitive field. Filming entirely within the United States removes the international location that had been the format's most consistent creative asset since cycle three. The reduction to a three-judge panel strips the critique sessions of the multiple editorial perspectives that had made the panel work. The domestic locations are attractive; the cycle around them is the weakest CW execution in the canon.