In defense of the show...
I've only seen a few episodes for the first time today, but I was surprised by all the criticism I found here. Some of it sounds pretty warranted -- like putting a teenage girl on the show because she's in a goth phase (who didn't have an unadvisable fashion phase in high school?), or when boyfriends or husbands seem to be objectifying the show's "victim."
If I see those episodes, I bet that they'll piss me off, too. I get it. But I just wanted to chime in because what I saw today was pretty positive. Each woman had clear confidence and body issues that were addressed during the show. Some of them compensated for it by covering up too much, and some by wearing far too little.
One woman wore bulky black clothes and painted half of her face to look like a skeleton. She said this started when her father died, and when the host asked if she tried to look scary because she was afraid of trying to look pretty but failing, she said yes. So this wasn't just about her dressing badly, it was about her moving on from grief and understanding that she wasn't ugly.
Another young woman was there because she dressed like, well, a cheap hooker. When she started dressing that way, she also started calling herself by a different name and acting more outrageous and attention-seeking. When the show filmed, she was studying to become a social worker and said she wanted to help kids who were having a bad time at home or at school because she had been picked on so much as a child. Her bullies teased her about her body. She wasn't merely a bad dresser either, but someone who had a warped view of her body and self-worth.
What I'm getting at is that in the episodes I saw, each woman benefitted not so much by the makeover, but from the frank confrontation about why they were dressing that way and then the encouragement and reassurance they received. All reality shows are formulaic and repetitive, so I can absolutely see how this particular formula could get too critical, cheesy, staged, or misleading, but I don't think it deserves some of the "worst show ever" criticism it seems to be getting. All makeover shows have the potential to treat their guests with disdain that they don't deserve, but I didn't find this show any worse (or better) than others I've seen.