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Ken Paves, Jessica Simpson and CaCee Cobb explore Thai culture. “I think the journey really was finding what was beautiful inside of me,” Simpson says.


Jessica's "The Price of Beauty" travels the world -- starting in Thailand -- to examine what makes women in different cultures feel beautiful. (It airs at 9 p.m. Mondays, starting tonight, on VH1.) "Kirstie Alley's Big Life" documents her efforts to lose 90 pounds and establish a plan to rival Jenny Craig's. (It airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on A&E.)Back when dinosaurs in low-rise denim roamed the land, a barely famous, chastity-promoting pop singer from Texas named Jessica Simpson had a show on MTV, "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which chronicled her nascent marriage to a man who'd sung in a barely famous boy band. She was an emblem of her era, the triumph of the baby-talking pop star of the 21st century, who was praised far beyond her actual talents thanks to her (and her father/manager's) ability to jiggle and preen for the camera. Jessica: Donning "Daisy Dukes" for the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie and posing for all pictures backside-first.


Kirstie: Starring in two "North and South" miniseries wearing a corset as Virgilia Hazard.Mostly The Price of Beauty is about a celebrity needing something to do. In it, Simpson travels the globe -- Thailand, France, India, Uganda -- with her BFF, CaCee Cobb, and her high-dollar hair stylist and feyde de camp, Ken Paves.At best, "The Price of Beauty" reminds you of the most clueless of ugly Americans who are sometimes seen in "The Amazing Race," barking in Spanish ("muy rapido!") to cabdrivers in Mozambique; Simpson's naivete about the world beyond her own crosses a line from mildly clueless to patently offensive.