'The Choice' premiere: Cat Deeley gasps for air

She might have thought twice about wearing red leather pants while swimming.

First of all, the hideous dancing silhouettes have got to go. They don’t even match up to the women behind the doors! Get rid of them! (They were admittedly funny the first five times.)

Welcome to The Choice, Fox’s new six-part dating series that rhymes with The Voice and incorporates the same four “blind audition” chairs as the NBC show. The similarities end there. Here, four “celebrities” — this week: rapper Romeo, moguls skier Jeremy Bloom, soap star Jason Cook, and “household name” DJ Pauly D of Jersey Shore — must listen to women brag about themselves for 30 seconds and then “pull their love handles” if they think she seems hot and desperate-to-cook-them-dinner enough based on voice alone.

They were all hot though! So the whole blind/chair thing was pointless.

I did enjoy how Fox’s promos for this show kept promising “the ultimate blind date — they can’t see” as if all of the participants were LITERALLY BLIND. Turns out they can all see. This ain’t no MasterChef!

Did anyone else think Jason’s splotchy brown leather jacket was the star of the show? It was definitely either the jacket or Cat. Ms. Deeley, bless her heart, was as smart and witty as she always is as the host of So You Think You Can Dance but did seem rather out of place in a sea of trash. Still, Cat tried to do her thing. She endearingly held the girls’ hands as they awaited judgment and sang out the contestants’ names in her signature way. “Heeeeeeeere’s Nia!” “It’s Elyse!”

The Choice‘s format reminds me a lot of MTV’s mid-’90s dating game Singled Out with its parade of heels and subsequent “rounds” to thin out the crowd of hopefuls. Singled Out was much more fun and quirky, or maybe I was just younger and not yet jaded by the devolution of reality TV.

The Choice‘s “speed choice round” is particularly awkward, with Cat yelling “Ready, set, date!” to give the four guys 30 seconds to converse with each of their three chosen meat sticks. This bizarre glimpse of “natural” yet thrown-into-the-spotlight human behavior is something I’d either find fascinating or really, really depressing, depending on my mood and how terrible the humans in question are. In this case, two women blurted out “What is your relationship with your family?” during their 30-second window to talk to the guys. Seriously? You’re on a dating reality show. On Fox. In the SUMMER. Look at what you’re wearing. Now either shut up or ask a truly meaningless question.

After the guys eliminated one of their three selections during the “speed choice round,” the remaining plasticine shawarmas trotted back out onstage, this time wearing pageant sashes indicating the names of their potential guys. They answered the same question (the second one to answer had been sequestered in a booth “with headphones” and probably the dulcet tones of DJ Pauly D). They all tried their best, but — as in any pageant — the ladies’ answers didn’t really matter because the guys had already made their decisions.

But wait! First the guys had to swivel back around in their thrones for 10 seconds, during which they could either ask the crowd for feedback (difficult because nobody remembered the girls’ names) or, in Jeremy’s case, sit there silently. THEN Cat invited them onstage so we could scrutinize the height differences among the potential daters. And FINALLY the guys chose the hottest one of their three blind dates. Nice to meet you; come sit on my lap; the end.

Did you like The Choice? Did you laugh when Pauly D called himself “trustworthy” or were you too busy peering deep into the bags under/surrounding his eyes? Dude needs a nap. But he’s a DJ! There’s no time.

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