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Worst TV Show of the Week Brought to you by the Parents Television Council	Share |
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Bachelor Pad on ABC

The cast members of ABC’s Bachelor Pad (Mondays, 8:00 p.m.) like to justify their actions by regularly saying to themselves and to the audience that at the end of the day, “it’s still a game” – a game that pits them against one another, places them in compromising positions, humiliates them, and manipulates their emotions, all for the sake of winning cold-hard cash. Well, to keep the game metaphor going, in the rough n’ tumble world of television critique, the August 23^rd episode of Bachelor Pad has scored a hat-trick. For the third consecutive time it has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.

Previously, the weekly challenges on the show have been vaguely sexual – a Twister contest, a pie eating competition. This week, however, the producers threw suggestiveness out the window and broke out the breath mints and lip balm for a group kissing contest. Some of the women express misgivings about competing (and interestingly absolutely none of the men). Gia, for example, has a boyfriend so for her a kissing contest is tantamount to cheating. Ashley on the other hand worries about upsetting not just one man, but rather a roomful of students. As a high school teacher she’s afraid that they will loss respect for her if she participates. Ultimately, she decides: “Money can’t buy the respect of my students.” Guess what, Ashley. You probably lost that as soon as you set foot inside the Bachelor Pad. Most teachers teach summer school to earn extra money during vacation. They don’t lounge by the pool in their bikinis, flirt with men, and sip champagne in the off chance that $250,000 drops in their laps.

For the sake of the game, Gia decides to go through with the challenge, but it quickly becomes apparent that she regrets her decision. She wilts as each man in succession presses their lips against hers while she is blindfolded. She squirms and pulls away, and the men for their part, sense her timidity and respectfully relent. When it comes time for each of the seven girls in succession to kiss the six guys, Gia watches repulsed at how the other women throw themselves at the men. With tongues lapping, lips smacking, and hands caressing, the other women make it abundantly clear that they are willing to take the competition to the next level. Natalie says as much: “I’m pretty confident that I’m going to win this competition because I’m not scared to kiss all the boys. I would make out with everyone in the house for like twenty bucks.”

Gia’s distress heightens as each new blindfolded man is teed up for the ladies. “I can’t make out like how I saw the girls making out with someone that I don’t feel for,” Gia whimpers to the camera, “I can’t do that in a line, one-by-one like, ‘Okay. Next. I’m gonna make out with you, pretend I’m into you, touch you all over.’ I can’t do that with a boyfriend; I can’t do that without a boyfriend…Every girl was really intense, really passionate and really wanting to win. I didn’t think that everyone was going to turn into porn stars here.” Gia withdraws from the competition in tears after delivering half-hearted pecks on the lips.

For the most part, the men enjoy the challenge – perhaps too much, for one guy in particular. Jonathan (a.k.a. the Weatherman) responds creepily to the thought of women accepting his kisses under duress. In his smarmiest moment to date, he tells the camera, “Lining up hot girls, uh, I get to kiss them, and they’re blindfolded? I love the Bachelor Pad.” When it comes time for the women to kiss him he giddily admits, “I am freaking stoked for this. Phew! Every guy dreams about seven girls lined up – hot girls lined up – to kiss them. I’m going to love every second of this.”