I watched the first two episodes of season 7 and found the contestants to be annoying, self-centered, overly dramatic, superficial, and appearance-obsessed. And they all seemed to think it's okay to have those traits, though they acknowledge they are bad at dating and always choose the wrong people.
The twenty-two self-professed losers come on the show hoping to split a million dollars and, they hope, to learn how to make better choices in partners. A "panel of experts" has supposedly picked eleven "perfect" couples to make us this crew, and the daters have to discover the correct pairings to win the big bucks.
Between all the preening, posing, flirting, and fighting, there are tasks designed either to help them discover their perfect matches or to obfuscate the correct combination of pairings. It's never clear.
I admit I watched the previous season's first and last episodes to get a better perspective on the overall process. I wanted to know if they really learned anything? Was there enlightenment? Were there long-term match-ups? Did they even come close to winning the money?
This exercise helped me see that little changed in the contestants. In the end, there might have been a couple of lessons learned, but their behaviors seemed largely unchanged. And, as suspected, winning the money is a difficult challenge, though not impossible.
If you enjoy watching attractive people with juvenile attitudes and the conviction that being overly dramatic is the best way to be, then this show might be for you. Are some young viewers of MTV seeing these contestants as role models? No doubt, and that's why it deserves a low grade.
