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Just when I thought reality TV couldn’t get any
worse, it did. During a recent business trip, I was flipping
through TV channels in my hotel room and came across a show I didn’t recognize –
Age of Love. Because the world needed yet another
show where dim, but good-looking women make fools of themselves as they
compete for the affections of some equally astute male, NBC producers are now pitting a group of women in their
forties against a group of women in their twenties under the premise conducting
a “great social experiment.”
During the show, the “Cougars” (you
guessed it – that’s the flattering name that’s been given to the older women)
and the “Kittens” (who rival Paris Hilton in the class department) go on group
dates with the bachelor, Mark Philippousis, an Australian “tennis
superstar.” As is typically the case with these shows, the dates
consist of women trying to push the others out of the way in an effort to stand
out and strut their stuff to Mark (amid a lot of giggling and sexual innuendos).
So,
I’ve never been a big fan of these matchmaking shows (except for the time that I
watched the marathon before Trista and Ryan got married. But she’s from St.
Louis and I didn’t have a whole lot going on. What can I
say?). I think they are fake (and I’m not just referring to these
ladies’, er, assets) and degrading to women. I’m not sure why any
woman would want to portray herself like a fool who is desperate
to win the love of a man she’s never met before.
But this show
hits a new low. It depicts the younger girls as being
inexperienced airheads, and the older woman as beautiful and confident, but, you
know, they’re old. The synopsis for the last episode even reads,
“Jennifer pulls Mark aside for a private chat, and Mark can’t believe that she’s
48 years old! However, the thought that she could be his mom kind
of freaks Mark out.” Boy, am I on the edge of my seat now.
I can’t wait for that final episode where Mark finds true love with one
lucky lady, followed by news stories discussing how deeply in love they both are
– until they break up two weeks later and said lady announces that she’s set her
sights on becoming an actress or a model.
NBC: We
get it already. ABC's The Bachelor was a big hit. You wanted in. But must we keep recreating the same show over and over
again in hopes of capturing that success again? If so, I might
propose the idea for a show where several TV networks court me in order to win
my viewership and I send home the one that continues to come up with unoriginal
material.
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