Tuesday, January 14, 2003

"FAME WHORES": Last night's second episode of Joe Millionaire was exactly what I feared the whole series was going to be -- boring "dates", vacant declarations of instant "love" to the camera, mild catfighting . . . in other words, just The Bachelor on a different set.

There was very little talk of money in this episode, either from Evan Marriot or the twelve remaining women. No talk from Evan of feeling uncomfortable with The Big Lie, little talk from the women of being attracted to him for money alone. Just three "dates" in the French countryside, each consisting of Evan having the women doing more work than they expected -- picking grapes, shovelling coal and cleaning stables. Yawn.

The episode also featured more padding than a 12-year-old's bra, with a five-minute recap (and then a two-minute mini-recap) to open the festivities, repeated interview segments -- all this while not doing the one simple thing that could really aid viewing: every time a woman appears on the screen, give us a chyron that reminds us of her name, hometown and occupation, okay? They only did so intermittently, which made things really confusing.

Seven more eliminated; only five remain for the Final Humiliation.

There was only one thing worth remembering from the episode, a line of Evan's that revealed that (a) either he's a warm, funny, genuinely decent guy who happens to have unwittingly roped himself into a deceitful scam, or (b) the producers have scripted him really well to sound like warm, funny, genuinely decent guy who happens to have unwittingly roped himself into a deceitful scam. Anyway, here's Evan, commenting on one of the women:
She looked like a million dollars . . . not that I know what a million dollars looks like.
Classic.

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