It’s funny how life has a way of giving you what you need right when you need it. Just when I was thinking to myself, “Gee. I’m not really seeing enough lying and cheating on television,” FOX steps in like an old friend with new programming to satisfy my sadistic impulses. Bless them.
Meet “Joe Millionaire,” a.k.a. Evan Wallace, a 28-year-old bachelor who recently inherited $50 million and is looking for love — or so 20 women believed when they flew to a chateau in France to woo this handsome heir.
In reality, Evan Marriott (Wallace is his middle name, used to conceal his identity) is a salt-of-the-earth workin’ man who makes $19,000 a year doing construction. I think a “yee haw” is in order.
The series premiered Monday at 9 p.m., when the audience was introduced to Marriott and given a brief summary of his transformation from shmoe to Joe. Then we met the 20 prospective suitorettes and quickly latched onto our favorites and shunned the “less congenial” ones. I know this because a friend of mine called me during the show to discuss just that while we were watching. We’re gunning for Zora and we don’t like that Heidi girl. I felt like a gossip at a knitting bee.
The climax of the show was at a ball, where Marriott would choose 12 women to continue on the show. But before that, there was glorious drama when the women fought over 20 dresses for the one they would wear to the ball. Mwuahahaha!
More tension occurred when at the ball, one of the women asked Marriott’s middle name, but since he is using it as an assumed last name he stumbled into a long pause. Suspense! At the last moment he beautifully covered by giving his mother’s maiden name, “Elder,” saying he hides it because it “doesn’t roll off the tongue.” Oh, Evan. For a nice honest boy, you sure can spin a tale.
Not since “Temptation Island” has there been such malice and skullduggery on the part of television executives. Not surprisingly, “Joe Millionaire” was created by the same team. I’ll see them in hell.
There are only six more episodes of the show, which is good because I’ll probably stop caring in about half that time. Guilty pleasure and total waste of time are separated by that proverbial thin line. The show’s hook of love competing with money doesn’t hold fast when facing the utter absurdity of the circumstances: Can the girl Evan chooses see through the millions and love him for who he really is — a lying bastard who can’t get a date?
Excuse me if I sound bitter, but Evan is already expressing sentiments of regret and moral conflict about choosing to do the show. Lying is bad, blah blah blah… I have morals, blah blah blah…
BOO FRIGGIN’ HOO!
Where the hell was I when they signed up for this? He has beautiful women throwing themselves at him, and he’s having a conscience crisis. Yeah, I’m real sympathetic, pal. Sure, he’s a hottie biscotti with his Peter Gallagher/Dolph Lundgren good looks and Patrick Warburton voice, but I myself have been likened to a crispy cookie on occasion, and I make even less than he does! One more reality show that doesn’t want Mason West.
When Marriott picks his dream girl and breaks the bad news, I hope she kicks him in the kiwis. That’ll teach him for taking my sho… I mean, deceiving those poor women.
MwuahahaHAAAA!!!