Episode 1 (03/03) post-show discussion

[LG.]

spegs, very funny.

As an unrelated point, the guy who let the general public pick his bride at some silly event at the Mall of America about 8 or 9 years ago is still married and has kids. The premise was that this guy was something of a dork and his friends came up with a contest to get him married off, as the guy agreed to marry whomever got picked. They put info about the guy in the local media, women who were interested interviewed to be finalists, the group of friends picked from the interested group about 5 finalists or so, then they had a big public party at the Mall of America where people voted on which one he should marry and then they did like 1 week later at the Mall. (There is a 7 day waiting period for marriage licenses here in MN.) They show up on the local news every once in a while, couple of kids, happy as clams.

Yup, weirder things have happened.

[Wayner]

Key differences between MBA and the Mall marriage. First, the guy's friends got to narrow it down. Second, and more importantly, FOX had nothing to do with it!

[LG.]

true that, Wayner, but if FOX had known about it, they would have been there. Like the whole MOA isn't cheesy enough.

[fluff]

Originally posted by Norm601
Weird is right.

Standout weirdos: Jill's Dad and Billie Jean's roommate. Would love to be a fly on the wall in that house. Whoa!

Ugh, Jill's Dad was awful.
I can imagine him putting off a few of her past boyfriends.

[fluff]

Originally posted by Wayner
Okay, I might get blasted for this, but here it goes.

I'm sorry, but I just can't watch this show. People that are willing to have someone else choose their spouse have no respect for the institution of marriage at all. I mean, at least with shows like The Bachelor the people are trying to pick their own spouse, however quick it might be. I can't believe that any of these marriages "by America" would actually last. Talk about a quick way to get the divorce rate up over 50%.

I agree Wayner.
The concept does seem objectionable.
An example of the reality show format growing so fast and straying into somewhat unacceptable areas.

I don't envisage a single marriage coming out of this or if it does, I can't see it lasting.

[Bill]

Originally posted by Wayner
Key differences between MBA and the Mall marriage. First, the guy's friends got to narrow it down. Second, and more importantly, FOX had nothing to do with it!

I'm not going to defend the show Wayner, and I agree with you in principle. However, they did bring in family / friends to do the screening much like in the "mall" situation.

Overall, I have to give those family and friends some credit. We don't know if they really know their friend/sibling/child etc as well as they think they do, but I did see them expressing good reasons as to why they picked or kicked the suitors... at least good reasons for that person... for me, some of the reasons were silly, but that is me, not them.

I just seriously doubt though that most of these people are here for marriage. No surprise there.

[skey14]

i gotta say...I was a bit fascinated with how lightly the topic of marriage was to these people. I was both bored( and only watched 20 minutes of it ) and disappointed.

guess thats why we have choices of programs to watch.

[John]

So far, I can say that I really hope they end up with 5 proposals and no marriages at the end of 5 weeks.

[Norm601]

It looks like our early indications of boredom with the show were representative of the overall audience. Ratings were very low compared with other recent "reality" shows, according to the overnights.

[DigitalPrince]

> For example, they don't tell us how the the initial five
> were chosen for each person. But they spend forever
> introducing them.

I agree, Bill. I was curious as to how they narrowed the "thousands" (they did say that number in passing didn't they?) down to five.

And why they didn't penalize some of them for saying stupid things. But I guess in that situation it's hard not to sound inane.

The show was almost interesting for the first 30-40 minutes but then started to get almost tedious. I agree the attempts to manufacture suspense were cheesy. And I didn't see why they made such a big deal out of the soundproof booths the "majors" were locked away in. Why weren't they allowed to hear what we heard? Are they going to have to choose on whether or not to accept marriage based only on physical appearance? I didn't get it. Part of the appeal would maybe be watching the "major" cringe at the bad choices his/her friends and family were making while being powerless to do anything about it...