Monday, October 10, 2005

which of these things is not like the other?

or
NEXT!

I was sick this weekend, and it was raining, so I was positively stuck inside the apartment. Without even the brainspace to figure out what to ask Jack to go rent from the local video store, I was stuck with copious stories of turkeys in Turkey with avian flu and whatever awful stuff was on TV. After attempting to watch a 1-1/2 star movie starring Jerry McConnell as a cartoonist which turned out to be a 1/2 star movie starring Helen Hunt as a woman in love with a guy in the hospital (and why oh why can’t you TV people update anyone regarding what you’re showing?) I ended up on an MTV show that I had managed not only to avoid but not even hear about in any form until Saturday, called Next.

In case you’ve been doing nothing but complicated book layouts and cursing at Alex Trebek (as have I) I will explain what Next is. It’s a dating show. It’s a dating show not dissimilar from Third Wheel or Studs. It’s a cruel dating show with incredibly shallow people, some of whom are highly attractive, and some of whom you would avoid sitting next to on the subway. The way it works is this: one single person, we’ll call him/her Moe, gets to meet 5 other people--let’s call them the Curlys. Moe gets to decide how much time each Curly spends with him/her, and the Larry will win one big fat dollar per minute spent with Moe. Obviously, the Curlys are very very poor that they are willing to subject themselves to this for what, after waiting time, amounts to much less than minimum wage and probably equals about what my mother used to haul in small change on Halloween in 1956. The kicker, if you can call it that, is that the Curlys remain “hidden” on a bus, so Moe may be spending time with Curly Joe, while the real Curly is on the bus talking about her past lesbian experiences. If Moe doesn’t like the first Curly that comes off the bus, Moe says “next!” and a new Curly comes out. Some of the Moes try to humiliate the Curlys, which will always eventually backfire, as when the Curlys go back on the bus they always tawk about how mean Moe was to them. The Curlys spend alot of time on the bus together, so they forge a closer bond than Moe could possibly. The show ends when Moe decides he wants to stay with a particular Curly, and he gives a little speech, that goes something like this. “Curly, you and I have spent the last 72 minutes together having fun. So you have made 72 dollars. You can either take the 72 dollars, or go on another date with me.” The show is much better when Curly says “PSYCH! I’m keeping the money beeyatch!”

Anyway, Next is clearly yet another indicator that we are yet again in the endtimes. Almost no one behaves in a reasonable fashion. Like for example, I would have thought that Lesbian Next would be less catty and more gentile that Hetero Next, but I was way wrong. One girl got nexted for not wanting to go swimming, and another got nexted for allegedly wearing too much makeup. It’s possible that the Lesbian Moe thought that this Curly’s darker skin color was makeup. Anyway, the abrupt speed with which brown Curly was dismissed was rather alarming.

And, as is the custom on most dating shows, the girls are always better-looking than the guys. When a girl Moe is set up with her 5 guy Curlys, at least one of them will be repulsive, two will be wearing golf shirts with popped collars, and one will be dressed in head-to-toe Urban Outfitters. Whereas the girls are always at least presentable. The girls are never anyone that you would be embarrassed to set up a friend with. Why is this? Is it me? Do I just like girls better? Am I one of those closeted, self-hating lesbians? Perhaps these are issues for a therapist, and not a blog.

Anyway, I proclaim Next to be perhaps one of the only marginally watchable shows on MTV. Not as good as my old favorite, Motormouth, but better than the show with the tattoo’d emo band drummer with the bad teeth and his wife.

2 Comments:

Blogger Jon Konrath said...

I think I saw part of one of these and I was amazed at how MEAN the girls were. Like, the first one went out, and she wore like a size -7, and the other three immediately started talking about how huge her butt was.

This might be the endtimes, but I envision that as we get even closer, they will mash up a show like Next with the lame troupe of celebrity has-beens and comedians and have them give commentary as the date is going on. So Hal Sparks and that annoying guy from Ed can comment on how fat the girl's butt is.

11:46 AM  
Blogger Chompers said...

that might be. they already had "star date" or whatever that was on E. one time someone had a date w/ eddie munster. i don't think it went very well. it'd be cool for a guy to date wednesday adams because she grew up to marry porn "star" jerry butler who has the smallest schlong in the business.

1:54 PM  

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