Dish Of Salt: Down With ‘How To Get The Guy’ (June 12, 2006)

by Laura Saltman

I think thirty-something women should unite and go march down to ABC and have them throw in the trash all copies of its new reality series, “How to Get the Guy.”

Not surprisingly, the show is executive produced by men; men who have no clue what women want. To be fair, I really loved ABC’s reality dating series last summer, “Hooking Up” which took a real, frank and no frills look at Internet dating. The show received a ton of great feedback. So, it makes sense that this year ABC would want to try and follow up with another dating show. “How to the Get The Guy” is like “The Rules” on TV. Remember that ridiculous book, back in the late nineties, that tried to give women a road map for how to land a guy. The only thing I want to land is an airplane.

Basically, the premise is two love coaches, one male and one female, help four San Francisco women navigate the tough world of dating by offering advice like, “Dating is a process”, “When to turn to internet dating” and “How to turn a first date into a second date.” How about if you have chemistry with someone then you go out with them again, not try to fool them with some silly tricks into a second date. While watching this show with another of my thirty-something co-workers she commented during a speed-dating segment on the show about the caliber of men, “If that’s what’s out there, I’m depressed.” Me too. Note to male television executives: single women don’t need a group of men telling them how to go about dating.

I understand the appeal of having a male perspective on the issue but if you want a show that has some insight, hire a group of successful women who have been there done that and let them pick the brain of their male counterparts. That way you won’t end up with a show that’s not offensive to single women everywhere.

Personally, I’d rather watch a fictional show about a cute guy then a reality show about how to get a date with a cute guy. If you agree, then flip over to TNT at 10:00pm instead. Tom Everett Scott, the cutie from “That Thing You Do” gets his own TV show, “Saved.” Scott plays Wyatt, a paramedic trying to shake a gambling addiction and his overbearing father who wants him to go to medical school. Wait you don’t need to go to medical school to become a paramedic? Considering the lengths the paramedics in the show go to save lives, you’ll wonder why they are not considered doctors. And that my friends is most likely the point here.

Music lovers will enjoy the show, which makes great use of contemporary music instead of that cheesy canned instrumental music most shows use. The show also makes great use of a technique I first saw in the outstanding German flick, “Run Lola Run”, flashing back in super speed through the victims lives, to show how they go to the point where they needed a paramedic. It’s not a perfect show but its pretty good and a great companion to TNT’s returning series “The Closer”, which airs right before at 9pm. The show was the number one series last summer on basic cable and earned its star, Kyra Sedgwick a Golden Globe and SAG nomination and most likely her name will be announced on Emmy nomination day July 6th.

Gordon Ramsay, the expletive shouting chef from hell returns for season two of Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen” tonight with a two-hour premiere episode beginning at 8pm. This season it will be a battle of the sexes with the men’s kitchen taking on the women’s kitchen. The winner becomes an executive chef with a share of the profits in a brand new restaurant inside the Red Rock Casino/Hotel in Las Vegas. Be prepared for a whole lot of bleeping out cuss words considering Ramsay hates pretty much everyone’s first dishes. Don’t these contestants all come from jobs in restaurants? I’m sure their food is better than most people can cook. This is a reality show though, so I’m fairly confident Chef Ramsay has been told to yell, scream and express his overall disdain no matter how the food tastes. If you love food, I’d suggest skipping this and going straight to your local burger joint. I’d personally rather not know that there is some dude sweating into my pasta sauce behind the kitchen door.

Have a show you’d like me to know about? E-mail me at [email protected]

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