NBC has been heavily promoting its latest “reality” TV series – “Age of Love” – which premieres tonight, as a grand “social experiment.”
The question of the ages this show promises to answer: When it comes to falling in love, does age really matter? The answer, of course, is no. Unless one of the partners is of legal age and the other is not.
Despite the highfalutin “social experiment” talk (“Get me a bachelor – stat!”), the “Age of Love” promos eventually get around to what the “reality” show is really about – cat fight! (Yes, they say “cat fight.”)
The “social experiment” goes this way: Hunky, handsome 31-year-old Australian tennis player Mark Philippoussis is ready to fall in love. The show has 13 women for him to meet – a group of women in their 40s, called cougars, and a group of women in their 20s, called kittens. Because it is a “reality” show, Philippoussis won’t meet any women actually close to his own age. He will, of course, have 13 beautiful women vying for him, and only him. Just like life. Well, maybe like Warren Beatty’s life back in the day. We are expected to care whether he “can” fall in love with an older woman. But in reality, NBC expects you to tune in to see older women fighting younger women for the affections of one man. Snore.
Reality TV Magazine (yep, it’s real) tells us, “Unaware of each other, the two groups of women meet for the first time taking the competition for Mark’s affections to a whole new level. From there, each week the field of women will be narrowed down with the remaining vying for his attention – but only one can win Mark’s heart.”
Apparently, “taking the competition for Mark’s affections to a whole new level” is what we are to tune it for. Unless said competition includes some Wile E. Coyote-type of elaborate schemes, we doubt it will reach a “whole new level,” thank goodness.
If there were the smallest dose of reality involved, perhaps we might see the “social experiment” go awry in several possible ways:
* One of the women discovers she actually packed her dignity in one of her suitcases and decides to drop out of the “experiment.”
* Four of the women realize they’ve been included only as “placebos” in the experiment and go clubbing instead.
* One of the kittens falls hard for one of the cougars.
Uh, oh. We can hear the NBC social scientists scurrying back to the drawing board as we speak.
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