I'm guessing this is the correct forum for this, but if it gets moved to Non-Reality I won't have a problem with that.http://www.eonline.com/On/StarDates/index.html
Star Dates: E.G. Daily
Premieres: Aug. 7, 10 p.m.
Encores: Aug. 8, 1 a.m., 8 p.m.
Did anyone catch it?
Article:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2086513/
Excerpts:
E!'s Star Dates features has-beens and the people who want to date them.
By Virginia Heffernan
Posted Friday, August 1, 2003, at 4:26 PM PT
Blindly choosing a phrase is passing fun, though the lyrical list, it turns out, is a fake-out. The opaque groupings aren't general categories from which a match will be chosen; they're exact pseudonyms. Choose Disco Ducks, and you'll only end up with Deney Terrio, the host of Dance Fever from 1979 to 1985. Last-Minute Cuties will get you Robbie Rist, the floppy man-child who played Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch. Funny Girl turns up Debra Wilson from Mad TV. The Space Cadet is Richard Hatch, who was once an astronaut on Battlestar Galactica. Carrottop is the former pop star Tiffany. Mountain Folk is Mary McDonough from The Waltons. Men in Berets is Fred Berry, or Rerun from What's Happening! Bunker Buddies is Jimmie "J.J. Evans" Walker from Good Times. Dyn-o-mite.
In just a few episodes of Star Dates, what stands out is the congeniality of the pairings. Presided over by a nice chauffeur and chaperone named Reggie Gaskins—a theater actor for whom dating "ain't about all this bling-bling and yo-what's-up how-you-feeling-shorty, it's about being real, being true, but most importantly, being a gentleman"—the dates go smoothly, sweetly, uneventfully. Each star goes on two dates per show, most of which involve L.A. adventures like surfing or target shooting. Gaskins asks the star and the dates for their impressions at regular intervals. In response, they come up with variations on "he's great."
Tiffany gets a little more action. One of the world's purest one-hit wonders, she still keeps herself in So-Cal shape, with high-contrast chunk-streaked hair and wondrously lucid skin. Her dates include an Australian guy who likes, more or less, to party. He seems rich; they go surfing; he gives her a back rub; she likes him. That one looks like the most persuasive match so far this season. Tiffany's next date is a slacker musician who hardly says a word, except that he liked to strip. Reggie doesn't like him; he won't play the gentleman for the camera. Tiffany assures everyone she had a good time.
The Nordic good looks of Leif Garrett—teen pop idol, Tiger Beat favorite—have taken some hits since his heyday in the 1970s, but he's got a hippie-bearish vibe that Reggie calls groovy. Something about Garrett's red eyes and swollen face, however—as well as his genuinely impressive discography (11 albums), which I found on a fan site along with a list of semistar turns in film (33) and on television (65)—reminded me that celebrity is short, but work is long. All of these ministars have been putting in the hours for decades; they're tired. That's another thing they have in common with the love-seeking people who come on the show to date them. Maybe it's this note of resignation that makes Star Dates appealingly winsome, if not very steamy. As Jimmie Walker said at the end of his kissless date with a pretty, middle-aged hippie named Darby, "I appreciate her giving me as much time and thought as she did." This, from J.J.! It kind of breaks your heart.
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