Page 135 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

11 | Dat ng Shows

evening timeslots, it also sexed the genre up considerably, featuring contestants
in skimpy bikinis, bumping and grinding at night clubs, engaging in long and
sloppy kisses, and so forth. Blind Date’s followers, such as Elimidate and Fifth
Wheel, later added a competition element, whereby singles would date multiple
suitors at one time, inspiring contestants to one-up each other in dancing, kiss-
ing, and stripping.
This competition met its nadir with FOX’s Who Wants to Marry a Million-
aire? in 2000, a show that while roundly criticized, whet the network’s appetite
for prime-time, hour-long versions of the Elimidate formula of young people,
sexy locations, lots of alcohol, and open invitations to cavort. Thus, Tempta-
tion Island followed, a show that split four couples up, placing the women on a
tropical island with 20 young men, and the men with 20 young women, to see
if anyone would be “tempted” to cheat. Temptation Island opened the flood-
gates for prime-time dating shows, with the less tawdry and significantly more
popular The Bachelor starting on ABC in 2002. The Bachelor took a bachelor
to a secluded mansion filled with 25 women in evening gowns, and then pro-
ceeded to arrange “fantasy dates” for them, as the bachelor was required to
whittle the 25 down to a final winner. The show also inspired multiple vari-
ations, from FOX’s Joe Millionaire and NBC’s Average Joe and For Love or
Money—all of which “tricked” the bachelor/ette or suitors in some way—to

a seleCtiVe tiMeline oF dating shows
The Dating Game ABC, 1975–83; syndication, 1978–80,
1986–89, 1996–99
Love Connection syndication, 1983–94, 1998–99
Blind Date syndication, 1999–2006
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? FOX, 2000
Elimidate syndication, 2001–06
Fifth Wheel syndication, 2001–04
Temptation Island FOX, 2001, 2003
The Bachelor/The Bachelorette ABC, 2002–
Average Joe NBC, 2003–05
Boy Meets Boy Bravo, 2003
Cupid CBS, 2003
For Love or Money NBC, 2003–04
Joe Millionaire FOX, 2003
Date My Mom MTV, 2004
The Player UPN, 2004
Next MTV, 2005
Parental Control MTV, 2006
Flavor of Love VH1, 2006
I Love New York VH1, 2007