The Next Joe Millionaire – Season Premiere
Fox - Monday 10.20.03, 8 PM

This opens with a recap of Joe Millionaire The First, reminding us with clips and audio about all the excitement and tears that were a part of this the first time around. This is like going into a movie in which they show the trailer for THAT MOVIE before the movie starts. I mean, by that time, you’ve already decided to watch it… I don’t know… let’s move on.

So, we open with scenes from the entire season of the show, catching little glimpses of what lies ahead for us this time around. Unfortunately, it went by way too fast and was pretty uninteresting (“the excitement” and “the tears” and David ends up swearing a lot, and even cries, but overall, same old same old), so I’ll save that for someone who wants to post vidcaps or just summarize what is tossed in there.

We see David Smith. He’s on his horse. Look for this quite often in the future of this show. I just have a feeling.

We meet the girls, via a map of Europe for those of us Stupid Americans who don’t know the location of anything else in this whole world besides our local town bar and our local town shooting range. But more on small town America later.

From Germany: Cat, Jerusha, Johanna.

From Sweden: Olinda, Lina.

From the Czech Republic: Kristyna, Linda, Tereza, Karolina.

From the Netherlands (where Mr CQ is from!): Anique, Petra.

From Italy: Yassamin, Alessia, Giada.

Cue America’s Favorite Butler, Paul Hogan. Paul, oh how we missed you! Paul sets the scene in his chair in front of the fireplace with the brandy snifter and asks the question we all have been dying to ask: How did we pull this off? Well, the answer is simple, he explains. They found fourteen European women who never heard of Joe Millionaire. I bet that was tough.

Of course we are promised this season will be exciting and unpredictable yet again as Paul insists “if you think you know how this all will end up, I promise you, you don’t. After all, this is Joe Millionaire.” Oh, thanks. I almost forgot what I was watching.

Cue David Smith. We see many scenes of rodeo life. He says rodeo is an adrenaline rush. Sean, David’s “rodeo coach” (Who knew they had coaches? I wonder how he pays his coach when he only makes $11K a year. Maybe rodeo coach is actually the only job that pays even less than Rodeo Dork does!).

We see many fantastic David.Is.Hot scenes. Mmmm… I actually have no idea what this part was all about because I can’t really understand his Texas drawl, and especially have a hard time concentrating on it when his shirt is off. Moving right along…

David is not rich, and he’s doing this for the love. His parents were (or was that ARE? O.M.H. – I think he still lives at home!) very traditional. He isn’t allowed to wear his hat indoors or wear spurs at the dinner table (at least he didn’t say supper). Wow. His parents must be strict. No spurs at the dinner table. That’s really harsh. My heart goes out to our protagonist for having endured a particularly rough childhood.

Cue Mom. She doesn’t care who the girl is as long as she loves her son. All together now: awwwwwww. Thanks, ObvioCam.

Back to David. He wants a girl that’s nice and sweet, doesn’t “cuss” or act like a guy. He’s very worried about lying to these girls. It is here I wonder if he watched the first JM to pick up any tips, and figure he probably didn’t. I don’t think he’s taking his job as the new Joe very seriously. Didn’t I see him at the Yankees game 1 of the World Series? He even had his big fat cowboy hat on. Let me assure you, if he sat in front of me with that thing on, he could be Joe DiMaggio and he would get his arse beaten in Yankee stadium for trying to sit down with a big stupid (important part: view-blocking) cowboy hat on. But I digress. David wonders if they will like him or if they will like “all this money I’m supposed to have.” See, he’s so hot. Then he talks.

Ohhh a pretty blazing sun over… ick. Are those power lines? Yuck. Europeans… shame on you. Your land is supposed to be gorgeous and cherished, and here our first introduction to our new setting for this season is a sunset ruined by power lines. Our plane flies over them and we land in Florence, Italy. Apparently, the limo driver missed a turn or something because he pulls a really sharp turn and slams in front of the door, where David is greeted by Paul.

David: “This place is huge!”

Paul: “It is raahther mammoth, isn’t it?”

They both get awards for being Captain Obvious as well. David takes after his Mom in that department. I suppose I’ll just give Paul the excuse of having said it in mockery of the dumbass cowboy. David is given the grand tour and he seems extremely impressed. A lot of the stuff looks the same to me. The balcony looks just like the old balcony. Hmm… are they reusing props? Sets? Scenery? I ponder this over the commercial break.

We come back and a rooster crows and the sun rises. We are informed it is 7:00 AM Sharp. Wow. Roosters sleep late in Europe.

Paul learns David that he is the boss. No, David is the boss.

Paul: You are the boss. Call me Paul.
David: Yes, sir!
Paul: No, Paul.
David {nods; afraid to talk for the uncontrollable Sir may fly out again}

Paul is going to turn David into a gentleman. Good luck with that.

Now it’s 9:00 AM. We are having an extremely brief overview of the cultures of the five different countries from which these women hail. So abbreviated that even the word brief is too long to convey the brevity of this lesson. Paul glosses over some generalizations about each country, and Americans are made to look even more ignorant than usual. David takes notes with a pencil like a third grader as Paul blabs on about the ways to greet people in each of the languages of the women. During the course of this lesson, Paul has to remind David to control is Sirs, please. Yes, Sir. Paul slams his head against the wall. I agree, Paul. The Sir thing is probably a lost cause.

For Mr CQ: David didn’t know where Dutch were from. Oh, yeah. Holland. He did, however, know that Holland is the land of wooden shoes. Rock on with your cultured self.

Now it’s 12 noon and we see the women for the first time. O.M.H. – they aren’t speaking English. WTF am I going to do? Oh, wait. They were speaking English… hold on…

Anique – 21 – student. Some of the girls said he’s theirs if he looks like Lenny Kravitz (yuck), but she wants him if he looks like Keanu Reeves (more yuck).

Olinda – 26 (yeah right… methinks she may not be telling the truth here… figure maybe 36 and she is going to blame it on bad translation) – freelance fashion designer. She expects him to be funny, good-looking, intelligent, and a gentleman, like James Bond. This girl watches too much TV and movies. Yet, she’s never heard of Joe Millionaire. Go figure. Maybe she’s the Mole.

Johanna – 21 – flight attendant. She has no image in her head. Unless of course you mean that image of a tanned, blonde, muscular hottie hot guy. Otherwise, there’s no image.

Oooh… we interrupt this boring intro to the girls with a particularly yummy shot of David looking, well, tanned, blonde, and muscular. And delicious. Oh, even better. He didn’t say anything. Back to the girls.

Karolina – 25 – waitress. Maybe he won’t be all that special. Maybe he’s something really different. Maybe he’s a girl. Well, she may be wishing for that, but this is Joe Millionaire. Maybe Fox will be inspired by this latent lesbian lingo to produce Josefina Millionairess next season. I suspect these same 14 women could still apply.

Alessia - ? – bartender/actor. Wants a man who is honest and has a sense of humor. Oh yeah, and money. Mm Hm.

Lina – 22 – retail sales. Wants her man to be sophisticated. Well, maybe you can ask David to let you go first.

Anique – Wow. Anique is hot. Just had to throw that in there. The Dutch have some hot genes about their people, don’t they? Think about that over the commercial break.

Welcome back. “The Girls Arrive”

Paul arranges the help (maids and cooks, I guess) so they stand a certain way. There’s some chick there that I guess will be the host. Oh, her name is Samantha. By the way, the help? Nasty. Not a chance this Master will run off with the maids. We have Old Nasty Maid and Young Homely Maid. Yuck.

Hot Dutch Girl says it’s like a movie. Very cute long hair girl whose name I can’t find says she’s always had artistic loser boyfriends but has loved them all. Watch out. She’s our Zora.

The girls assemble in one of the bazillion huge rooms in this house. The host shows up. She tells them a bit about David. He’s an American cowboy. Instantly this is met with the following reactions from the girls:

- eye rolling
- extreme unhappiness
- “redneck” “riding a horse”
- “freaky”
- “We are European. This is a joke.”

Samantha (host) begins to embellish about David. He’s a trust fund baby. He just turned 25 and is now estimated to be worth $80 million. Suddenly the women don’t seem so turned off by the cowboy concept any more. Funny how those five syllables changed their entire perspective. (You can’t find five? Say it with me: worth eighty million. Yup, that’s five.)

Cat – 21 – DJ/Bartender.

Petra – 27 – student. Wants diamonds and pearls.

One girl says she’s excited that he’s a cowboy because she’s a cow girl. Actually, I think she said “I Am Cow Girl.” She has a shirt that says Cow Girl, so, as near as I can figure, she may also think it has another meaning in English, like, say, awesome, or cool, or something, so she says “I am cow girl” instead of “I am cool.” At least, that’s what I’m hoping. European cow girl is too much to handle right now.

Jerusha – 30 – law student/flight attendant. Another flight attendant? Did you see the movie Blow? All of a sudden I feel like it’s 1968, I just moved to California, all the women are hot, and they all share the same occupation. Anyway, this flight attendant is our mandatory minority contestant.

The girls drink and throw out random yee-haws. I think they’re practicing. Tons of glasses of champagne later, we go to commercial.

Incidentally, I had a VCR mishap during the taping of this show. Apparently, it’s too difficult for me. Shut up. So I had to call my West Coast Emergency Response Team and have them tape it and then send it to me. Anyway, my friend out there has been alluding to this happy cow commercial in L.A. for a very long time now, and I finally got to see it! Apparently, the cheese in California is good because the cows there are very happy cows. Indeed.

We’re back. Cue the cuckoo clock. What is with Europeans and cuckoo clocks? Mr CQ’s mom has one and it scares the beejeebus out of me. Anyway, we are in the kitchen and the cooks/maids are discussing the need for more champagne. Paul’s voiceover informs us that these girls like to stay up late and sleep even later.

Olinda is cranky. Drank too much last night and is hung over today. Not that she had to say so. It was written all over her face.

Tereza – 21 – assistant writer at a magazine. Roommate and I discuss what this means her actual job function is. We decide it isn’t likely to be PG-13 in nature.

Cut to the girls in the pool. We have gratuitous nipplage. A tear comes to my eye. That Fox. Such a family channel. Always incorporating a little something for everyone.

Linda – 25 – marketing manager/model. Why are all these women in Slash careers? She expected the man to be a banker or something like that. Well maybe he’s a cowboy slash banker. Did you ever think of that?

Lina defines her idea of Texas for us. I had to rewind and decode, but this is her definition of Texas: apple pie, spare ribs, small villages where everyone knows each other. Small villages. Texas. Hello? Americans don’t have these villages of which you speak. I laugh at the irony. Europeans are just about as ignorant as Americans, I’d extrapolate from the contestants on this show.

Linda is talking to the other girls about her future as Mrs. Millionaire. She is going to live on the ranch and eat ranch dressing every day. If this is ignorance, it’s sad. If it’s a joke, it’s even sadder.

The girls go back and forth and are defining “rodeo” in their confessionals, and through conversing with each other. Ideas are thrown out there. What’s the point of rodeo? A man has to be tough and strong in order to do this. Horse training? Like a race? Maybe they’ll figure it out eventually. Who knows.

We (finally) go back to David, who is selecting his horse. He chooses Hurricane.

“Meanwhile”

The girls have been practicing their American Hick phrase book while getting plastered AGAIN. We go to commercial, which is good, because now I have to break the seal.

We’re back. The cooks are attacking meats and skewering innocent fruit chunks. European food is weird.

David wakes up and shaves. We get more hottie shirtless shots. Mmm. He can come over here and shave in front of my bathroom mirror. He just isn’t allowed to talk.

Paul goes to wake up the girls. They all look like they got run over by trucks on their way to bed last night. Wow. Talk about needing to know what she’s going to look like when you wake up next to her in the morning. Some of these girls are Coyote Ugly.

All through breakfast, the girls are whine whine whining about having to be awake and I’m praying, wishing, hoping, they will send David in to meet them now. Please, please, please let it be now. I really need to see their reactions. I mean, they really look like something the cat dragged in. Anyway, I don’t get my wish but David will be here later in the afternoon. So the girls start cleaning up.

Lina finds it admirable that someone is still a cowboy. She probably thinks cowboy can be used in place of awesome, also.

The girls pile outside and wait in the grass. Finally, after the waiting, waiting, waiting, checking of watches, waiting some more, boring confessionals about how they have been waiting waiting waiting… we go to commercial.

We are back and we recap the waiting, in case you missed that part. Now there’s dead silence as the ladies catch their first glimpse. He is about three MILES away from them on his horse at the entrance. As he appears in our vision, there is a strategically placed sound byte of the horse neighing, or whatever it is that horses do. He rides up the path. It takes forever. After all, he is three miles away.

He finally gets close enough to the women and dismounts. He’s no Evan Marriott. He knows his horses. He doesn’t tumble down the side of the horse and land on his ass, tip his hat and give a goofy smile. He’s a thoroughbred cowboy. The real deal. And so hot. Until he talks.

Here, he decides the gentlemanly thing to do will be to park his horse about thirty meters away from the women and scream to them from this distance.

Petra thinks he has a beautiful, bright smile, and he seems a bit shy. Cat wants to ask him why he needs to meet a girlfriend this way when there are so many American women. Good question, Cat. If you get an answer from him, you just might be able to write a doctoral thesis on the exact reason why reality TV exists. Oh, yeah, one of the girls thinks he has a nice ass. No arguments here. Linda is kind of disappointed they didn’t get to introduce themselves. She wants to look into his eyes, and then she might have something to say about him. In other words, leave me alone, confessional guy, I have no opinion yet.

Paul does his little closing and here we are. The end.

- hopes you are kind as this is her first real summary