Saturday, September 29, 2007

The Tour Ends Sunday Night


For the later part of the summer and well through September, I've been catching the episodes of Rock Of Love With Brett Michaels on VH-1. This is another one of those bachelor-dating type of shows that has been popular on various networks over the past couple years. ABC has done them with both bachelors and bachelorettes. VH-1 tends to put a celeb-reality spin to them - they did two with rapper Flavor Flav, a spin-off show with one of his rejected contestants 'New York', and now this one with the former front man of Poison.

I guess what appealed to me about this show is that I always found Brett Michaels to be charming. For a hair-band rocker, he has multiple layers. I've seen him do some acting and directing stuff which he was good at. He is likable. He's wrestled with diabetes openly.

I figured I would enjoy the show just to see what kind of interesting competitions he'd put the potential dates through. And on that level, he didn't disappoint. Sure, there was the chessy 'talk dirty to me' phone-sex one, the tour-bus obstacle course one and the 'design an album cover' one. Those were kind of expected on a show of this type. But he also had the girls ride dirt bikes, play some football, and a few other activities that he actively enjoys when he's not performing and touring.

There was also the dates themselves. He took the girls to favorite restaurants and bars, took them to the shooting range, to hockey games, to the recording studio, to ride horses, to Vegas, to get a tattoo. They were varied and interesting, and it again showed me more aspects of what Brett enjoys - so I got to know him better.

Of course, what also makes the show are the girls. And let me tell you - a lot of these seemed like they were taken right out of the open casting call from Jerry Springer! There were those that were trashy, plenty that were 'enhanced', some that couldn't hold their alcohol, and plenty who were willing to get into a cat-fight to win 'their man'. All the sterotypes were there: the bubble-heads, the crazy-ones, the sensitive ones, the one's there for fame, and even one's who were open to finding 'love'.

At first, the eliminations went fast - five of the thirty weren't even going to make it inside the house (though one of the first five ejected begged her way in - but she went when the next mass cut happened). Once down to a reasonable number, the eliminations went one per week. Those chosen to stay on got a 'backstage pass'; for the ones cut "the tour ends here". So after the final three's parents got brought on to meet Brett (and that was a hoot of an episode!), crazy Lacey was let go leaving the final two as Heather (the bleached blonde enhanced stripper) and Jess (the hair styliest with pink-frosted-tips).

The winner will be revealed tomorrow night in the finale after Brett takes the two girls for the final dates down to Mexico. I've been backing Jess for many weeks now as she's cute, hilarious in her commentaries, and just a lot of fun. Of course, then we'll have the inevitable reunion show (which is really just another Springer-like madhouse when all the girls are put back in the same room to answer questions and take final shots at one another now that they've seen the aired show ). That'll be nothing but a good time!

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