ABC's "Dating in the Dark" Experiment

So the other night, ABC aired the first episode of season 2 of Dating in the Dark. (By the way, where was I during season 1?!? I don't remember even hearing about the show until this season.) Oh, and it hasn't escaped my attention that this is the second ABC show that's all about looks vs. character, basically (see The True Beauty of "True Beauty" for my analysis of the other one). Incidentally, still another ABC show, Primetime, did a "What Would You Do?" segment a while back about whether strangers would step in to help upon seeing an overweight person being verbally abused. I'll blog about that one later. In any case, ABC is bringin' it!

But--I digress. Dating in the Dark is a "reality" show where, each week, 3 men and 3 women meet each other and date a few times only in a completely dark room. And only after that has taken place do they see what each other looks like and then decide if they want to date.

First of all, since this is a reality show, I'll stipulate that a) the producers pick certain personalities to create drama (and therefore ratings), and b) the editors can shape the story however they want. I get it. Having said that, the producers/editors would've had to drastically change from what happened to make one part of this not...just suck.

Joey is a self-proclaimed straight shooter who's attracted to thin women. But, as I've said in reference to the John Mayer fiasco, there's having preferences--and then there's being a total ass.

This should make it clear which category Joey belongs to:



I loved what Natasha said after she walked out of the room from that encounter: "If I'm 78% compatible with that [which relationship experts hired by the show had said], I need to change a lot about myself."

And Joey got what was coming to him--not a single one of the girls invited him to a reveal, and he left the show. Sadly, he didn't get it. He was all, "I don't know what happened. She was appreciating my honesty." Yeeeah, Joey, she was appreciating what giant ass you are. One can only hope he watched the show when it aired, saw her true reaction, and has decided to be less of a jerk from now on...though I can't say I hold out a lot of hope for that--usually the biggest jerks are also the biggest blamers-of-others.

I was glad to see that one woman, Kym, who admitted she'd been really picky in the past and about external things, did decide to let some of that go once she saw the guy she'd been pairing up with. He was wearing a (small) hoop earring in the reveal, and she said that, had she seen him first, she'd have written him off just for that! Wow. So--one person took a small step to overcome at least a little shallowness. Bravo!

So: what do you think? Would you be able to "date in the dark"?