More to Love Review

On Tuesday Evening Fox premiered it's newest reality dating show. With so many reality dating shows out on the market (The Bachelor, Next, Daisy of Love, ect) FOX recognized that they had to do something a little different. As the title suggests, More to Love is a reality dating show featuring overweight people.

The concept is a sound one. It's a fact over half of Americans are overweight or obese, it makes sense that one entire half of the population might be drawn to a dating show featuring people who share a common struggle with the audience.

Usually the type of people who are drawn to reality shows are desperate for fame or money, with "More to Love" you get the definite sense that the contestants are actually there to find love. I can't seem to decide if this is a positive or negative for the show.

On the one hand the emotions are genuine, and you don't have any idiots attempting to use the show as a platform to launch their music career. On the other hand you have a bunch of people with very low self esteem who are about to be rejected on national television.

In some ways the premier of "More to Love" was quite depressing. I watched beautiful girl after beautiful girl talk about how they honestly saw this show as their only chance at love. Some of the female contestants admitted that they had never been on a date before, or that they had been with men who were embarrassed to be seen with them in public.

Reality dating shows are all about wish fulfillment. Weather you want to be perused by twenty gorgeous potential mates, live in a mansion, go on romantic excursions to tropical islands, or perhaps you simply want to be loved. Reality dating shows offer us all a chance to experience all of that by living vicariously through the contestants. There have been shows dedicated to dating millionaires or rock stars, and one can certainly understand the appeal. Yet on some level I find it sad that the greatest fantasy of many overweight Americans is simply to find someone who will find them attractive and love them.

I am predicting that the elimination ceremonies will be heartbreaking to watch, but for some reason I plan on watching them anyway. "More to Love" appears on FOX on Tuesdays at 9/8 Central.