Ready for Same-Old Same-Old

Ready for Love premiered Tuesday night.

This show is unlike any other reality dating show you’ll ever see, lies executive producer Eva Longoria.

Lots of dramatic music and lighting. Lots of quick cuts and editing that makes Cloverfield feel like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. Random reality-show dialogue ensues.

“It’s about to get real.”

“She’s messing with the wrong person.”

“Herpes! Herpes! Herpes!”

There are three “amazing” bachelors. There are three “top” matchmakers. There are two co-hosts. There are 36 women…excuse me…girls. There is the incessant use of the term girls to describe women. There are 12 drummers drumming. There are eight pipers piping. And chlamydia in a pear tree.

Co-host Giuliana Rancic and her husband Not-Giuliana Rancic say this was an “epic” search, and “we’re meeting the best of the best” of women willing to subject themselves to reality television. Not-Giuliana Rancic is the first to misuse the word “literally.” And it is “epic” and like “nothing I’ve ever seen before” except that I have.

Tonight is Tim’s quest for love. Tim is a “rock star” in the band the Plain White T’s.

In the first of 5,678 mini-biographies, Tim confesses that he’s not a stereotypical rock star in the sense that he’s unrecognizable. Tim married his high school sweetheart, but things didn’t work out because he was touring 367 out of the 365 days in the year. He’s sad, yo. See:

Tim gets to meet four women chosen for him by “top” matchmaker Amber. Giuliana explains that Tim will have to stand behind a wall and not see the four. He will have to pick three based on their personalities. I have never seen this before ever.

Wait…have I seen this before?

Nope. Never.

Amber is coaching her “girls.”

“Words and lyrics speak to him,” she amazes “Get your message across.”

Wow. I’ve been doing it wrong all these years with my set of semaphore flags.

We get Amber’s mini-biography. She says she doesn’t know how anyone meets people in clubs. “Matchmaking goes with the 21st century.” And feudal China.

And it begins. The four women pop up in boxes.

And it reminds me of something…what can it be?

Yup, that’s about right.

This is working well for Tim because his Madame Alexander Doll collection is missing a few essentials.

We get mini-biographies of the women, but they’re short because most dolls are interchangable. The French one gets a shot to show her spontaneity by spinning awkwardly in a plaza.

Tim narrows down the field and does the same thing with four women chosen by matchmaker Matt, also known as the douche with a British accent:

And Tracy, who unironically refers to herself as “the honest truth.”

The ladies must entice Tim while he only has to breathe with his lungs and eliminate waste with his kidneys. Love!

Some recite insipid poetry, sing and, unfortunately, beatbox. The nine winners get sealed in plastic and placed in a special Matchbox car collector’s case. The three losers are sucked into the bowels of hell.

One of Tim’s chosen harem is Leah, a woman he has known for six years. Leah realized she loved Tim when she heard he was to be on television. Giuliana asks about the nature of their relationship. “We had our moments that have been great,” Leah says coyly. (translation: fuck buddy)

The women are shipped UPS to Tim’s rock-star lair where they are subjected to a Plain White Zzzz’s concert.

And I have never seen anything like this on a reality dating show. Have I?

Nope. I haven’t.

The women meet with the matchmakers for “helpful” “advice” before their collective first date with Tim. Amber tells her women to “build (their) brand” whatever the fuck that means. The date entails finishing Tim’s trite love song. The matchmakers each pick one woman to share one-on-one time with Tim.

Hailey, Amber’s pick, tells an embarrassing fart story and cryingly cries that she’s happy.

Danielle, Matt’s pick, shares her cute list of 50 or more qualities her perspective mate must have.

Christina, Tracy’s pick, plays the piano and stares at him as if she wants to murder his face.

Now we’re back in the studio for the matchmakers’ critique. Amber expresses her displeasure with Hailey. “You said F-A-R-T? And that word should never be uttered by a woman on a date,” she actually says all the while holding in her 52,560th fart. Matt accuses Leah of retreading the past too much and being boring. “He knows certain parts of me,” Leah says.

“I would like him to know other parts.”

Giuliana cuts to the chase: “Did you guys fuck or what?”

Leah refuses to answer. Yup, they did.

The matchmakers each choose a woman for elimination. Hmm…a woman being eliminated from a reality dating show. Have I seen that before?

Nope.

Leah, farting Hailey and Toothy School Teacher are on the chopping block. Tim arrives. For some reason he has a quill sticking out of his lapel. It’s so…rock star? Sure, let’s go with that.

He picks Hailey to stay and she farts back to the Matchbox case. Tim, Leah and Toothy are Star-Trek beamed to some garden for the elimination ceremony, and the giant jumbotron screen goes to snow.

Tim shows his familiarity with reality television venacular by saying “This is so difficult for me.” He ends up sending Leah home with the obvious “if we were meant to be together, why didn’t we make that happen in Austin.”

Hmm. A bachelor with a little brain function.

That I have not seen.