Is there a choice when it comes to The Choice?

Let’s seriously think about this for a moment. When it comes right down to it, what’s the better option: Getting off your duff, heading outside and taking a deep breath knowing you made a good decision? Or catching an hour of FOX’s The Choice and realizing, in retrospect, you made a bad one?

The Choice is a bastardized amalgam of the classic ’60’s game show The Dating Game and NBC’s The Voice, the answer (*snort*) to FOX’s American Idol.

Forget there are subtleties and variations on the theme between the two. The fact of the matter is this: The Choice revolves around unseen people self-promoting themselves and, later, being subject to a blink-of-an-eye question and answer session in the hope they’re selected for a date. If you witnessed the premiere episode of the show last week you saw this in all its “glory.”

Right? Right?!? Bueller? Bueller … ???

But is it on par with The Dating Game?No. It’s not. You see, that show was infinitely better. It was fun and fresh and sometimes hilarious and revealing and edgy and unpredictable. Not so with The Choice which I was subject to for an hour of my life … and hour ripped from me which I will never, ever, EVER get back.

There’s no peppy musical interludes on The Choice, nothing akin to Herb Alpert’s “Spanish Flea” or “Whipped Cream” when male or female contestants come on stage, let alone Chuck Barris’ scores. Instead we get gyrating shadows on a three-story partition which opens to reveal a contestant hip-swaying so flagrantly it would be wise to position orange safety cones need along the runway of the stage to signify danger. We get 30 seconds of babble from a hopeful trying to convince chair-sitting “celebrities” to spin around to see if they are worth their self-promoting hype in order to possibly garner a date. Yes … there’s back and forth, eye-to-eye conversation between the celebrities and the contestants, but there is no intrigue of seclusion as on The Dating Game, no voice-only contact indicative of the charm of that show. Instead of the surprise of who a contestant picked of three choices on the ’60’s classic, we get Pauly D (Jersey Shore) frantically trying to spin his chair back around when he discovers one of his potential dates is still virginal. *eyesh*

Look: I realize it’s summer time where the livin’s easy. I get that post-vernal programming is supposed to be light and refreshing. But does it need to be so damned air-headed? My brain is not a sieve, you know. This stuff will stick with you and do some major damage if you’re not careful.

All I’m asking is that you use caution while perusing the current fare on your television sets, folks. Seriously, we want to see you come the new fall season. We really do … honest and truly.

But if you find you need to plant yourself in front of the tube on a hot summer night, be safe about it at least — flip on Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream & Other Delights” (conveniently available below), sip some fresh lemonade and reminisce about The Dating Game.

Because you have a choice … and The Choice is not it.

“Summertime and the livin’s easy
Bradley’s on the microphone with Ras-MG
All the people in the dance will agree that we’re well qualified to represent the LBC …”

– Sublime “Summertime”

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Jun 12, 2012 @ 13:00 EST5EDT