TV Review: The Bachelor Rome - Episode 6, What Kind of Tool Am I?
17th Nov 2006, 04:30 GMT
The Bachelor is in Sicily at a villa-type spa that looks vaguely like the place Michael Corleone stayed with Appolonia, the pure-hearted Sicilian beauty who represented his last chance at redemption. Sadie (did she tell the camera she’s still a virgin yet?) is in a white bikini straddling Prince Lorenzo while giving him a back rub. She tells us Lorenzo has now been responsible for so many firsts in her life -- flying a plane, scuba diving in a pool, giving outdoor backrubs to naked men in Sicily with extra VIRGIN olive oil, etc. We're supposed to think Lorenzo's next first for Sadie will be to help her become the first woman to give up her viriginity before a national television audience. I can see the producers telling one another, "We get that on video and we can go head to head with O.J.'s semi-confession on the Fox Network; we're back in the reality TV big leagues." Mmm...I do remember something like it on a special episode of Doogie Howser and we now all know what happened with Neil Patrick Harris. I also vaguely remember similar firsts with Tori Spelling's character in Beverly Hills 90210, and maybe there was a lost episode of Heathcliff Huxtable drugging one of Lisa Bonet's friends, having his way with her, then paying an undisclosed settlement. Isn't it strange how reality TV is so much more like sitcom or soap opera TV than actual reality? I checked the ABC site and, where it once said "Sadie, San Diego, California, 23 occupation: event planner," it now apparently says "Sadie, occupation: telling America repeatedly that she's a virgin." After the fifth reminder in six minutes, I was screaming at the TV. "Call in Tattaglia to put a bomb on Lorenzo's private plane. Sadie's going to want to show him how she's learned to fly all by herself!" Do I need to remind myself that just a week ago there was this guy in Colorado who was writing books with his wife about how to keep your marriage vows before God and was helping the people of Colorado ensure that marriage was only for heterosexuals? Sadie is working so hard at letting America know she has an intact hymen that she's sounding an awful lot like Ted Haggard, which makes the "Lorenzo reminds me of Dad" thing even creepier. Please don't even get me started about the excitement of scuba diving in a swimming pool while you're like thirty feet from the Mediterranean or this whole "I fell for you because you have a pilot's license." I'm thinking, "okay, a boy asks my daughter out and picks her up in his car." Daughter goes, "Wow, I'm in the car with this guy and my life is now in his hands. I must really trust him. He must be really special." Sadie, you do know more people die in cars driven by teenaged boy idiots than in private planes not flown by major league pitchers? I guess, if the prince doesn't pick her in two weeks, we know where we can find Sadie. She'll be hanging around the bar at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, looking for guys with wings on their coat pockets. Yikes! That got pretty dark there. I need to be more positive. How about put her in a harem costume and she looks like Barbara Eden? That would make Lorenzo Larry Hagman, which would mean we just have to wait a few years and we can get Mary Crosby to shoot him. Wow, that's even darker. I read the above paragraphs and realized I've watched way too much TV over way too many years. Either that or Nick at Night is the only channel on our cable system. Well, I respect them both for being classy and conservative. After all, it's the epitome of classy and conservative to shout on national television fiteen or twenty times, "Hey everyone, I'm a virgin! I'm a virgin!" What a tasteful conversation starter, say, at the next royal gathering. "Good evening, your highness. Thank you for inviting us to the ball. This is Sadie. She's a VIRGIN. I met her on a reality TV show where I spent the night in the fantasy suite with a woman who went skinny dipping in front of a camera crew with a girl who did it in a locker room. You know, if we get married, we're going to have our honeymoon in the VIRGIN Islands." I'm sorry, I guess I got so worked up I may have missed the whole point of the Sadie segment this week. What is it we found out again? I know this seems strange, but I really started to like Lisa. First of all, I follow the Bachelor message boards and she basically revealed that she's one of us. After all, we're the ones who post about Travis being a tool and Andrew being a sleaze. Lisa, if you're reading this, leave a comment here or on fansofrealitytv.com or sirlinksalot, where the real students of the Bachelor hang out. I mean where else will you find skin pigment analyses of previewed pictures of the ring done by electron microscope and spectrograph? Maybe the parents liked Lorenzo, but I've already commented that Lorenzo clearly had no chemistry with that dog Lisa rented for their hometown date. If ever there was a sign that the woman is delusional, claiming her dog approved was it. Should she apply for the show again, here's some advice: 1) When talking to a 5'6" bachelor about another bachelor being hot looking, don't pick the guy who was 6'4" and looked nothing like him. 2) If Lorenzo is the prince, Andrew was the heir to the vulcanized winery. I wouldn't call the guy on the show most similar to the Prince, a sleaze. 3) You went on the show to find true love. Now, you and I know that only an idiot would expect to find true love on reality TV. Truth is, you find Erica, Lee Ann, Lannie's mom, stalker Stu, or -- scariest of all -- someone like Jen on reality TV. It's just one of those things. If you're actually honest about your motives, say, like being an actress who thought the exposure might help your career, everybody will hate you. Bachelor sincere is not the same thing as actually being sincere. This is what good TV is all about. 4) You cheated on boyfriend one and kept breaking up and getting back together with the guy you cheated with. That one ended like three weeks before you applied for the show, which implies that he or you might... This is really good reality TV, by the way, but these are the stories you tell to other bachelorettes while you're playing drinking games, and then one of them goes on the one on one date and tries to rat you out. 5) You might want to think about asking Lorenzo a few questions back and telling him what you like about him before you let them film you making out on the bed with him in the fantasy suite. You want good TV? You should make a surprise appearance on the final and offer to show the footage to Sadie before he offers the rose. 6) Could you let me know when you put the earrings on eBay? The trick is to set the "buy it now" at $14.5K and they'll sell in about ten seconds. By the way, I actually know someone who got a diamond ring on a reality show and sold it to buy a Scion. Maybe you can get a Ccion of your own that way. A small point or two: Lorenzo is 34. If you ignore the editing, Lisa was the only one of the final four who owns her own house, has a career, and had the nerve to say, "Well, I don't know that I'd just follow him to New York either." She also actually told Lorenzo the "truth" about herself by showing him her flaws, both personally and interpersonally. Okay, there's the small matter that she might be a bit manipulative, but Lorenzo's supposed to be a royal and thus used to that sort of thing. It's even an asset for a princess if you think about what happened to Princess Di, who may have come to Windsordom a bit too naive. If Lorenzo really were a prince, Lisa's the only one of the three who would survive in that world. Another small note, didn't they teach any foreign languages in all those private/boarding schools Prince Lorenzo attended? Royals are supposed to talk to other royals who inevitably speak some other language. It's kind of poor form to wander royal gatherings with one of those calculator-sized translators. Even cooler, she would have been on the message boards telling us all about it. She could post as Princess Lisa or Ms. Timetable. It saddens me that all those people on the message board turned on someone who was so clearly one of their own, at least in spirit. Lorenzo wanted to see Jennifer's emotional side so he took her to a Swedish amusement park. This guy's really deep. Royal news flash: screaming on a roller coaster is not really anyone's "emotional" side. They hung out at an ice bar, which I suspect was either some sort of metaphor or just made for a good backdrop. They have a deep conversation about Jennifer's past love life. She got over a college romance, which now means she's ready to get married, have kids, and move to New York. As a guy watching the show, let me complain for a second. What's with showing more of Lorenzo's cleavage and abs than his date's? Anyway, as they are about to jump into the hot tub, Prince Bad Hair and Funny-colored Sweater tells her, "This day was so much better than I expected." Any sane woman would say, "What the hell was that supposed to mean, bozo? Were you expecting to fall asleep? Were you expecting to spend the entire dinner telling me that you'd never move to Portland?" This was the perfect moment for some real Bachelor drama, maybe something like, "Well, if you weren't expecting much with me, let me tell you this: you really think Sadie's a virgin? Maybe you should ask Chris Harrison and Desiree. You know what I mean?" Can you imagine that as the lead in for the "Ladies Tell All" episode? Okay, even Mike Fleiss wouldn't go that far, but at least he could have crosscut to Dad watching his daughter in the fantasy suite. By the way, in case you were wondering, it's illegal for private citizens to own or carry firearms in Sweden. I checked. The producers of The Bachelor are much smarter than even I imagined. Anyway, let me step out of the room for a second. Any choice this guy makes won't change my opinion. He might be nice enough, but he's still, in the great Bachelor tradition, a tool. Here's my prediction: the editing tells me it's Sadie, by a nose, I mean, a rose. Oh gosh, your highness, I'm so terribly sorry. I don't know what got into me. It was nothing personal, it was just business. Like, maybe you're not on here for true love either.