I couldn’t sleep last night so i watched blind date and the 5th wheel. I had no idea people were this superficial as a lifestyle, they must intentionally seek out these people. The men came across as immature and sex obsessed. The women came across as manipulative attention whores who feel they are entitled to men who fulfill all of their mercurial high standards. And best of all nobody gives a shit about anybody. Not the men, the women, the host or the producers have any legitimate human concern or warmth for anyone else on the show. Everyone seems cynical and views everyone else as an object to gratify them. You are here to gratify me, entertain me, make me laugh, show me a good time, make out with me, live up to my standards, etc. Goddamn, this is one of the things that makes me happy that i dont date. But im sure most people on the street aren’t like this and these people are intentionally sought out for entertainment value.
Yep. That’s the profile for people on these shows.
Now that you’ve watched one, you can now watch whatever else might be on. Or turn the sound down and watch the pretty, pretty people while you listen to music.
The only one of these shows I actually like is Blind Date, because they make fun of the people on the dates, through the pop-ups that appear onscreen and sometimes Roger makes fun, too.
Otherwise, I think you are totally right. I can’t stand to watch 5th wheel or any other current dating show because they make me so angry. Mostly because being a woman, I hate how they choose the women for the show. They make women out to be manipulative, competetive with each other over a man (any man), fake, and skanky. Which I suppose is the point of the show, but I still can’t stand to watch them.
Not that the men are any better - slimy, obnoxious, and full of themselves.
All the “contestants” on most of these shows think they are the best thing since EZ cheeze, but it’s funny b/c I can’t recall ever seeing someone I, or anybody of reasonable intelligence and taste, would ever want to date.
Unfortunately, there is a limited amount of TV available at the wee hours of the morning…
Well, these shows did achieve one of their objectives, which was to make you think the contestants are actual people showing their natural selves. Once in a while, that may actually be the case.
But these shows are all cast, in Hollywood, from among those who show up for auditions based on the ads in the Sunday LA Times classifieds under “TV Show Contestants”. The pool the casting directors choose from is, mainly, the horde of aspiring actors who somehow think they have talent, head to Hollywood to find fame and fortune, haven’t yet gone over to the Valley to make porn instead, and are looking for a role they can turn into a big break and an actual career. The casting directors are looking for people who can make ratings-grabbing personal conflicts happen on camera, or at least get viewers to hate so they’ll watch.
“Reality shows” my ass. The shows have jack squat to do with reality. “Reality” for most of these people is saying “Hi, my name is Jason and I’ll be your waiter tonight” a different way each time so they can feel like they’re really professional actors.
To an extent, I think the dating shows are actually worse than other bad TV. At least with the other shows, you can just turn them off and ignore them. But with the dating shows, there seem to be a lot of single people my age who fervently believe that the dating scene is really just as depicted on the shows. Dating those kinds of people was not fun, and I am glad that I now have a GF and am out of the pool, as it were.
Just be glad you didn’t watch Elimidate. Four girls cat-fighting for a guy. The guy has the best job in the world, but why would the girls put themselves through that?
I’m with ya!
I can’t stand The Fifth Wheel, but Blind Date at least makes the experience funny by taking the piss out of its more egregious guests. On the whole, i reckon about 60% of the women and 80% of the men on Blind Date are total fucking tools.
The wife and i watch it every night. 
Mmmmm, bacon.
Imagine my shock when I saw a ‘yinzer’ on there at Pittsburgh’s ‘Touch’ nightclub. I would’ve thought it was a ‘Touch’ from another city had I not heard the word ‘yinz’ so many times from the guy, and even more Pittsburghese coming from the women.
That one was on Elimidate.
I saw a hilarious Blind Date once where the guy got incredibly drunk, had to stop the taxi several times to boot along the street, and then still asked the girl for a kiss at the end of it all.
That was comedic.
My favorites are the episodes where they show nothing but the very WORST dates, the disasters. That’s what I call entertainment!
Blind Date rules. I love that show. Thanks to TiVo, I can watch it any time, day or night. And I do.
Fifth Wheel and Elimidate are boring shit, though. They’re essentially “Joanie Loves Chachi”-style spinoffs of Jerry Springer-style talk shows, with the twist being that people wait until they’re in the bar at Hooters before they start calling each other fat and/or nasty.
Is it common for reality show contestants to jump from show to show? The reason I ask is that a few nights ago, I caught the tail end of some new dating show called “Ex”…um, something or other. The man on the date looked familiar, and after a few minutes of watching I recognized him as the loathesome Eric from the Sci-Fi Channel’s 'Mad Mad House." And yes, he was just as loathesome on the dating show. So does this happen a lot?