Riiight...............NEXT!!

I caught a glimpse of this pretty funny idea for a show while I was channel surfing yesterday. Here's the premise of the show from TV.com:

'MTV puts a new twist on the dating show. Each person is set up with five potential dates. If things aren’t going well, just say “NEXT!” to move on to the next prospect.

Now there is some incentive for the potential dates to be on their best behavior too. Each date gets cash for every minute they last and if they make it to the end of the designated date time period they can either choose to go on a second date, or take the money and run! Next!'

I have to say that it was honestly pretty entertaining to watch some of the things unfold. For the particular episode I saw, it started off with the 1 guy dating 5 different girls. He was introduced as this big baseball fan, so the whole date was baseball themed and held at the Dodgers baseball stadiuml. The funny and more outrageous part of the show was that the dates almost follow an obstacle course kind of format where the 5 potential daters each have to go through their own challenge. To give you an idea, the first dater came out and was asked by the guy to go ahead and throw the first pitch. Even though the show started off with a decently hot girl who seemed really nice, because of the fact that she couldn't throw a decent pitch, she was almost instantly told 'NEXT!' You know, because we all know that it's SO important for your girlfriend to be able to throw a killer fastball. WTF?!

Again keeping in mind that it's MTV, the show was a little bit racier. I think what added to my amusement was that when the girls were first introduced to the viewers at home, I'm sure they were told to be as edgy as they could be while getting away with it. To give you an example of one of the intro's: "My name is ____, and I'm gonna win because the only thing I won't do in bed is my hair!" Still, my favorite had to be the intro from a girl named Meesha: "Hi my name is Meesha, and I'm gonna win because Mee sha HORNY!" Right....

The edginess kind of ran throughout the show, because you could tell that the producers instructed all the contestants to have at least one witty comment/remark in their back pocket just in case they were told 'Next'. I wish I could remember some of the more classic lines from the show, but all I can remember right now is the usual stuff like "It's okay, I wasn't going to let you get to 2nd base anyway" or "For a ballboy, you're pretty big, but not big enough for me."

Now it being an MTV show, the contestants are younger than what you'd see on Blind Date (they were about 18-24ish). Some of the contestants were pretty hot while others were less desirable. The great part about the show was that the main person it follows is allowed to say NEXT! for any reason whatsoever. So the first half of the episode went something like this:

1st girl can't throw a pitch, 7 min later (Next!)

2nd girl comes out,
Guy: "How was the walk here?"
Girl: "It was sure long, but it was okay I guess.."
After their 1 minute conversation, Next!

3rd girl comes out, has to deliver snacks in a concession challenge. Can't finish it within 3 minutes, Next!

4th girl comes out (isn't very hot at all). Just as the guy sees her, Next! (not even 1 minute)

5th girl, the date works out, and agrees to go on a 2nd date.

If you ask me, the idea for the show is great, but it definitely needs some fine tuning. One problem I had with the show was that you only get 1 dollar for every minute that you spend with the main person. The time limit before the person asks the contestant for the 2nd date seems to be about 66 minutes or so. At that point, the contestant has to pick between going out on the 2nd date, or taking the money (all 66 dollars of it) and running.

There definitely needs to be more money involved with this game, especially if you have to choose between going out with a hot girl again, or 66 dollars. Surprisingly enough, on the 2nd half of the show when it was a girl with 5 guy contestants, the 24 year old guy chose the money over the hot blonde girl. Really? Do you need the 66 dollars that badly? Don't get me wrong, it was still amusing to see him say to her face that he'd rather take the money. But I think I would have made the other choice.

Again, it has the idea to be a really cool show, if they tweaked with the money system and if they actually went on real dates. Anyway it's a really amusing show if you can catch it, and tolerate the really cheesy writing. The show that I saw aired on MTV Canada (Channel 90 for Shaw Cable).