They continue to unload new summer reality shows like watermelons from a disabled farm truck. Two new ones debuted Tuesday, with Kiss starting an arena football team for AMC and singles tracked on their progress on Bravo.
AMC won’t bring “The Walking Dead” back until Oct. 12. By then, we’ll be deep into the NFL season.
But now, in the summer they have the drama of the AFL, the arena football league. And those zombies walking around are Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, out of their Kiss makeup.
For some reason what’s not fully explained in the season premiere of AMC’s “4th and Loud Tuesday, is why the two remaining full members of the band are getting into arena football ownership at all. Is it out of boredom or in a desire to plaster their logo over something new (they do have condoms and caskets, Simmons told me last month, “so we have you coming and going”).
The new reality series begins with the plans for the L.A. Kiss already in place, and a front office team that includes a distinctly non-rock figure, Brett Bushey. There are skeptical looks from the bald men at the Arena Football meeting toward the oddly coiffed elderly rock stars with the new team who say “we’re not doing this thing as a hobby — we’re here to stay.”
And with the hiring of a winning coach Bob McMillen, the series shifts more toward the kind of action in HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series about NFL training camps.Some people have to be cut; for some, it’s a last chance; for others, injuries seem to threaten their viability.
But there are problems caused by the L.A. Kiss front office. With all the focus on marketing, there is a lack of equipment on the practice field, not enough helmets, and not even a sure practice field until two days before training camp.
The players, too, are whoever they can scrounge up. Ninety percent of the players in arena football are tied up with other teams. There are a lot of open tryouts.
And overriding all the calls for a championship season in its first is the knowledge that the record for the inaugural season of the L.A. Kiss was a miserable 3-15, losing their last six games.
Paul and Gene play less and less of a role as the episode goes on, showing up in the stands at practice like interested grandmas.
There was one of those between-commercial segments though with Paul leeringly auditioning the motley would-be members of the team dance squad, though. It’s just about the only glimpse of women of any kind in the premiere.
There certainly wasn’t any Kiss music playing throughout. The thrashing chords in the background were more of the generic cable soundtrack than anything from the band. Could it be that the show couldn’t afford the clearances for authentic Kiss music any more than the franchise could afford quality players?
As a sports-based reality show, “4th & Loud” sort of works. The first episode ends after the first cuts at training camp. Next week runs up to opening night. Can’t see how it will get much better.
I’ve done interviews about the series that appeared here and here.
Bravo’s big talent seems to be in casting — finding the most annoying people on earth to people their glossy and empty reality shows. They figure that even if people hate the characters, they’ll still tune in to hate-watch with a certain fascination.
There’s a whole slew of them on “The Singles Project,” a show in which a half dozen New Yorkers enlist help of viewers to guide their disastrous dating careers. And oh, these people!
One is a celebrity eyebrow stylist, another is a Botox-wielding dermatologist, a third “an aesthetic dentist.” One works for “a lifestyle-driven celebratory brand” (say what?), and another seems to do nothing but sit around with her parents.
If they’re not straight-up awful people — self centered, petty, obsessed with looks — they’re just dull. One woman, Ericka, manages to get the courage to approach a guy at a bar and they have nothing to say. Not even about his bow tie.
The dermatologist, Tabsum, who looks like she’s indulged in a little collagen herself, is set up to go out with a loony young guy who shows her his underwear modeling photos and says he likes older women. She doesn’t cry until later.
Kerry, 27, is listed as a digital marketing manager, but somehow has never been online. So her friends set her up on dating sites and she promptly gets a penis pic within a couple of minutes.
Lee, 37, who looks a little like Barack Obama, is the “aesthetic dentist” who likes to pick up women at art openings and has a pretentious Soho apartment he likes to bring them (making his brother cook for them). He gets two women’s numbers at one gallery but is criticized for his zeal from the woman who comes over. He tells her the truth “since she’ll see it on Bravo anyway.”
Joey, the annoyingly cheerful eyebrow stylist, looks like the one who is closest to getting a relationship (or at least hooking up) with a guy his trainer tells him about. There’s one guy, named Brian, who wasn’t featured in the premiere episode at all. Still, he appears at the end and encourages people to hit him up on Twitter.
The interactive part of the show is a little underdeveloped. At one point, people are supposed to pick who Kerry should choose, though the show is not live; she can’t immediately act on suggestions. So there’s some random polls like who do you think will find love? Or if Lee should have solicited two phone numbers at the same place (though there’s no such question posed about Ericka doing exactly the same thing earlier in the show).
Dating may be rough for these people, but life ought to be harder for them just to compensate for their abrasive personalities.
I’m thinking they should either be forced to only date people from “Party Down South” or be dropped in the wilderness for a kind of “Naked & Afraid” survival. But instead of being naked they have to try to live without eyebrow styling.