Blind Date

When the creators of Blind Date hatched their ingenious idea and convinced Universal they could produce it as a twice a night strip, that was the first victory. The second one was combining it with written comedy. Introducing a pure reality date with no pop-ups would have grown weary by the end of the 1st season, but, right from the first day of shooting the pilot, surely the producers discussed their vision and agreed they needed to give the public a double dose of fun. I never miss an episode this show sucks you in and never lets you go.

A simple premise: a man and a woman talk to a camera and state the kind of partner they are looking for and add their likes, dislikes in and out of bed. Then they meet, and either have the best date of their lives and even open the door for a second date (which often ends up in some heavy action), or have some of the most dysfunctional, hilariously bad dates that the camera has ever seen, and those predictably end up inches away from a fist-fight... or in one audacious scene, the woman literally leaping from her date (which was on a boat) and swimming to shore, effectively calling it a day. While it is occasionally nice to see a date that doesn't go outrageously bad, it pays to see people make fools of themselves by putting themselves in the most embarrassing of situations while carrying out their quasi-date, and hearing Roger Lodge's wry observations at the beginning or end of these skits, and of course, the stars of the show are the often spot-on bubbles that "describe" what the daters might actually be thinking, especially in scenes of escalating awkwardness.

I have seen this show several times, and it amazes me how shallow and superficial some of these people are. I saw this one guy tell his date that "you're not pretty enough to be with me!" right to her face! When tact was being handed out, this guy must have been combing his hair or flexing his muscles. I thought I had seen it all, until I saw another episode when one particularly attractive young woman jumped into a cab during her date, and the man literally chased the cab on foot yelling "We can work it out!" My goodness, don't you have any pride! These people can't be serious....wait, maybe they are!

In any event, "Blind Date" is a cool show, so if you're up around 1am, check it out!

Blind Date is an hilarious show. The producers got wise pretty quick and figured out the dates would be more interesting if they paired opposites instead of people who might actually get along. Just watch, the results are among the funniest things you will see, and the writers do a surprisingly good job with their comments during the dates. Consult your local listings.

I watch too many of these dating shows; it creates images in my head that many people are going through life partly unaware of the impression they make, and are slightly clueless as to how they related to others. I need to remind myself that TV isn't true reality, since there can be much tinkering behind the scenes.

If we think of the contestants of this show being awful, what do we consider the ones on other shows ( where some feature more than two people leading to competition, extra insults/tension, bickering ).

Roger Lodge is a very good host. Many people on television ( not just dating shows ) just try too hard; they chatter a bit too much and use forced humor ( example: Jillian Barbarie of Ex-treme Dating ). Lodge tries go with the flow and does not force himself on the audience.

I have noticed contestants on dating shows who appear on more than one of them. It's a small, tiny, strange trend of current reality TV. Are these people obsessed with trying to be on these shows? Are they appearing simply because the producers of shows know each other and suggest contestants to each other? Who knows....