Cupid, Episode 1: Beauty and the Bitches

Simon chimes in that he knew she was gonna be a handful. She’s aggressive, nasty, ruthless, a bitch. His kind of girl (he actually says that, it’s not an editorial comment on my part). We see a bunch of clips of her being a bitch while a song about being a bitch plays in the background. OK, we get it. She’s a bitch. I won’t disagree! She calls people freak, boring, loser, loser, loser, etc. One guy says she hasn’t gotten any in a while so she had to take it out on guys. Well, that’s one possible explanation, I suppose. Or she’s just a bitch, as we said.

Coming off the loser segment, we have Mike, a traveling ski instructor, who goes in to talk about the many places he’s been. Lisa asks how he would support a family. He says he can work anywhere, even Antarctica. Lisa asks why he’s take his family to Antarctica?! The women say he’s not a family man, he’s not even home. He interrupts Lisa to show a picture of himself skiing. Laura asks to see it, takes it, rips it up. They tell him to leave. He ignores them. They say no again. He says they are losers. The host comes in to tell him to go. He says he has more stuff. Kim says they don’t care. He says they care but they’re in denial. So the security guard comes in to take him. He does a handstand. Yes, you read that right. Laura is like, “Hmm, maybe I should give him a try now.” Yeah, that was sarcasm. He says Lisa’s missing out on best guy on the planet. Uh, yeah, sure. Out with the other guys who have yet to go in, he says he’s really pissed off.

Certainly we’ve had enough losers, right? Yes. Darren is a 28-year-old equities trader (it seems like being a trader gives you an edge in this competition) who grew up in London and went to law school in Chicago. He brings a toy that is two teddy bears together, and if you push a paw they sing “I Got You Babe.” Three “yes” votes.

So with that, they got three guys from Miami. Next week is New York and L.A. to add to the seven they’ve already picked. From the previews, it looks like we can see more losers and Laura being a bitch again. Woohoo. I can hardly wait.

It appears I was not the only one not overjoyed by this show. While I can’t say how many turned it on and then turned it off, the ratings do tell a story of a show that did not premiere particularly well, though not horrible. Despite the huge amount of advertising and the inclusion of well-known Simon (or maybe because of his participation), Cupid only ranked second in the timeslot – behind a rerun of Law & Order. The show did beat L&O in the 18-34 age bracket, at least, but it lost viewers from Big Brother, airing before it and was the lowest premiere of the six reality shows on the major networks that bowed this summer.

When contacted about the less-than-great ratings, Simon Cowell said it was because “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was not the show’s theme song, and that if it had been, they’d have been number one.

OK, that’s not true, but considering how he made the same ridiculous claim when talking about the Ruben vs. Clay sales battle a couple weeks ago, it wouldn’t surprise me if he has a similar excuse this time.

By now, you’ve probably gotten a feel for my opinions of this show. They’ve tried to merge American Idol and various dating shows, but they are focusing, as AI did, on the guys who are not among the best. AI did this for far too long this season, and I think the same is true here. We didn’t need two full hours to see the guys being slammed. In fact, because of it I now don’t particularly care if Lisa finds her soulmate or not, and that should be a key factor in getting people involved in the show! Maybe I’ll feel differently once the first round is over, but then again, I might not continue watching it by that point, and other viewers might feel the same way. One major point is that it’s one thing to rip guys who truly deserve it – as some of them did. But to rip guys for horrible reasons like these three women did, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Luckily, I’m just filling in for this first episode, so I can go gargle some mouthwash and had it off to Bruce Barker, who will be taking it over next week. Maybe he’ll have a better feeling about it than I do.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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