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Forever Eden
Please, FOX network: no
more reality TV date shows! From the nice- yet- flawed Bachelorettes in
Alaska to last year's "Revenge of the Nerds" in
date show clothing (Paradise Hotel); every FOX date show seems
doomed to fail. Even when they score a sleeper hit like Joe
Millionaire, they
must offer us a second season until the
show actually sucks. There's no need for a second season of Forever
Eden, however, because it already sucks.
Here's the deal: a batch
of looking-for-romance contestants are sent to an island. Oh, I know; it's Temptation
Island! No; these are singles --not couples-- sent to a
hotel resort. Oh, I know; it's Paradise Hotel! Oops, wrong again;
this is "Eden"...or so they tell us, with each shot of the
"resort" revealing how much of a shack it truly is. The
singles are asked to enjoy this shack, until asked to vote someone
off...when, of course, the backstabbing begins. By then, nobody
feels romantic, and nobody has fun, including the viewer. It's the
same date show formula every year.
It's not that these are
annoying people, really. It's just that FOX has had so many variations of
this sort of show, that the contestant pool is very thin. All the
"best" candidates for such a date show have already been used
for shows like Temptation Island...or Joe Millionaire...or Paradise Hotel...or Love Cruise...or Bachelorettes
in Alaska...or
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?...or any of the other date show
nonsense FOX has tried to sell us. There comes a time when you must ask yourself: as nice as your next door neighbor's second cousin's college
roommate may be, does he deserve a spot on TV?
Simply put; there is
nobody on this show worth their own television show, reality-TV or not. Is that being
harsh? Maybe, but I'm not on TV, nor do I imply that I'd be a really cool
date show contestant. In all fairness, however, it's not the contestants
making the show dull, as much as the show itself. The women sit and
discuss which man is the cutest; the men play pool and get drunk. These
aren't boring people; just average people, placed into average
circumstances. This show is a prime example of how too much
"reality" can be a bad thing; how everyday, ho-hum dating
practices cannot seem interesting, simply because you placed them into a
ho-hum resort set in the dense jungles of "paradise" (in other words: the resort gardener must've quit).
Is this show worth it,
even for contestants? They're
given $4,000 for every
"eviction meeting" they survive, and yet when you think about
it, this is a ruse. Once evicted they must surrender half their winnings. So basically the
first man and woman to leave the island --who left simultaneously-- went home with $2,000 in their pockets. That
isn't mere spare change, but at this rate the final, "grand"
prize will probably be a trifle. When you consider how much these people
go through, the rewards aren't worth the trouble. This show's format is
flawed.
In the end, I lost
complete interest with this show around the time the resident "class
clown" was expelled. Yes, the gals thought of him like
a brother and not a love interest; does that matter? None of the guys will
get lucky with the girls so stop acting like they will. Furthermore, one
of the guys pawed one of the girls in a way that, shall we say, negates
any chances of political office for the man. Yet he stays for reasons that
are never explained beyond the show's producers approaching the woman and saying, "Dr. Octopus
is going to be in the
next Spider-Man movie; keep Mr. Hands on the show!"
There's no other logical reason for her choice to evict a funny guy over
an obnoxious one. That's not
good TV. It's not even sensible. If reality TV is not going to follow
common sense --either due to "alliances," logic, emotion, or
social conflict-- what is the point of this reality TV series at all?
Maybe I'm just reading
too much into this. Sometimes a bad show is simply poorly made; move on to
another series. That's exactly what I'll do. Time to stamp a
"burnout" rating on this show and move on to superior TV fare.
Life's too short for shows like Forever Eden.
---Techtite
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