While the summer television season has increasingly become bombarded with ridiculous reality shows-"Who Wants To Marry My Father" and "Style Court" are two cute ideas-another trend has sprouted from TV land, sure to ruffle many a feather.
Summertime now has a new form of relentless dating shows and makeover mayhem. And it doesn't come in the form of daughters marrying off their bachelor fathers, or otherwise charming neighbors painting each other's living rooms in orange and brown stripes.
It does, of course, still involve interior design.
The "Fab Five" of "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy," a team of gay men who spend four days transforming a scruffy, unorganized and lovelorn heterosexual into a better looking version of his sensitive self, are the latest gay entertainment story since David Guest married-and divorced-Liza Minnelli. (Big surprise on that one.)
Bravo TV, recently purchased by NBC, airs the show on Tuesday nights, back to back with their other gay show, "Boy Meets Boy." The first dating-slash-reality show to pair two men in a romantic relationship, "Boy Meets Boy" is as serious about matchmaking as "Star Search" is about making dreams come true.
A twist in the show's last episode reveals one of the three finalists vying for a date with bachelor James is actually straight.
So much drama, such a short summer.
The last time a gay TV show spurred so much talk was the premiere of "Will and Grace" in 1999. Also aired by NBC, the show offered a real person-with real feelings-to the face of flamboyant Jack, played by Sean Hayes, as well as the more modest yuppie, Will, played by Eric McCormack.
Four television seasons have passed since the show made headlines, and Jack's self-parodying hijinks-namely weekly testimonials on the glory of Cher and Britney Spears-grew tired quickly. In the beginning, the laughs were clearly directed at Jack (and Sean, by flamboyant default.) In time, fortunately, those laughs shifted direction, aimed not at over-the-top behavior, but at smart writing about smart characters.
Laughing always makes unfamiliar situations easier to deal with, but can the next phase of gay TV survive without Emmy Award-winning writing? Do real gay people have enough daily drama or experiences to carry a reality show?
Sure they do.
Since MTV premiered "The Real World" in 1992, every season has included the obligatory homosexual (and angry African-American man, and blond daddy's girl, and good-looking frat boy.) Some seasons made them the highlight, like San Francisco's Pedro Zamora, who quickly became the MTV generation's poster child of HIV and gay rights. With the passing of Zamora almost immediately after his season finished airing, though, the novelty of a gay "character" on TV turned from the kitschy to the serious.
Good comedy, like high drama, will bring in the ratings, however. And NBC knows a thing or two about ratings. After the premiere of "Queer Eye" on Bravo, network executives quickly jumped on the beauty makeover bandwagon and aired an abbreviated, 30-minute version after "Will and Grace" during its Thursday night "Must See TV" lineup.
"Boy Meets Boy," which focuses its attention to dry, drab romantic rendezvous in the southwest desert, is certainly less entertaining than the "Fab Five," but it never quite reaches the potential of what a pioneering TV show should be.
The show's sneaky twist is in place for ratings, even though it hasn't received the attention Bravo or NBC would have liked. In the end, it was nothing more than a mean inside joke that not only ridiculed the people involved, but also the future of such a groundbreaking project.
New shows come and go, but the real question people should be asking is not whom should be marrying whom, but why you'd want to play matchmaker for your father.
Really, some people have no class.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
