1) The Dullard. Well-meaning and good intentioned, he or she simply doesn't move fast enough. Sits on the sidelines, nurses his or her drink, asks probing questions like, "What do you look for in a person?" which the contestants seem coached to rebuff ("I'd like to hear what you look for"). Gone first, usually with some comment like, "I just didn't feel that click."

2) The Instigator. The polar opposite of the Dullard, he or she moves too fast, drinks a little too much, and picks fights with the others. On "ElimiDATE," this (with remarkable regularity) usually means a woman accusing another woman of having implants. On a recent episode, this played out with one woman trying to strip off another's half-shirt on the dance floor. Drunken catfighting ensued. Usually gone second.

3) The Willing Target. Can't resist responding to the salvos of the Instigator, usually with embarrassing results. On one of the rare episodes where four men vied for one woman (if nothing else, "ElimiDATE" knows its male, Maxim-reading audience), unemployed Clay keeps riding bartender Eddie for bringing flowers to the occasion. Eddie's retort is simple-minded and childish -- "What do you expect from somebody named Clay?" But Clay's gone: "I thought it was cute that Eddie brought flowers," the bachelorette says.

4) The Cunning and Bright Creature of Sensuality, Charm and Wit. Like the Dullard, steps back a little bit, but plays well with others, and tends to avoid knock-down squabbling, preferring instead to slyly position him or herself next to, as "Wild Kingdom" would put it, the potential mate.

Your mileage may vary as to whether any of this resembles your romantic life. But if you subscribe to the idea that you'd like your mate/lover/spouse to be a wise, observant and sensual soul, and that sexual attraction is important if not essential, then "ElimiDATE" actually hews to a sense of reality that other shows don't match. Like every other dating show, critics have been quick to call it humiliating and depressing to watch. But "ElimiDATE" never falls victim to the most humiliating and depressing problem with other dating shows: Watching two people who truly aren't enjoying each other's company stick it out for a night because, well, they agreed to be on a TV show. "ElimiDATE" subscribes to the notion that there's a right person out there; it just rejects the idea that it'll happen on the first date.

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Cynical? Sure. On "ElimiDATE," nobody believes they'll be finding the right one -- or if they do, they're gone quick -- but everybody figures that if they have a good time and see interesting things, it's worth it. Just as with television. When "Blind Date" episodes turn boozy or crass, one person usually bemoans the horrible thing that just happened to him or her. But because "ElimiDATE" is boozy and crass right from the start, everybody knows what the game is, and nobody's particularly shocked. As the show itself subtly admits, what's happening isn't a date at all: "Three get the ax, one gets the date" is the opening tag line. "ElimiDATE" is a pre-date experience.

When the show debuted last season, most television critics wrote it off as a cheap imitation of "Chains of Love," a network (well, UPN) show where a man was fettered to four women over the course of a few days, shedding off suitors. But getting rid of the chains meant getting rid of the goofy high-concepts that plague reality shows of all stripes; reality producers tend to fear that human beings, left to their own devices, are boring, so we get hosts and "immunity challenges." "ElimiDATE," to its credit, has no such fears. (A high-concept "deluxe" version of the show, set in exotic locales, was canceled quickly; low-budget dating shows just don't work on prime time, and we have the Travel Channel for exotic locales.)

Explaining the show's concept to Entertainment Weekly last year, producer Alex Duda explained that the show's charm is its hostless-ness. "You really get to hear how they feel about their competition, and what their strategies might be," she said. "So it's kind of like that Rashomon thing, right?"

Well, closer to "Yojimbo," if we're throwing around Kurosawa references; we're the impassive smirking samurai on the rooftop, watching two tribes battling each other in the public square, and we hardly care how they interpret the fight. What we do care about is how human beings struggle to balance their sexual and thinking selves, and "ElimiDATE" does it bluntly yet beautifully. Joyously and persistently, it blurs the line between sex and love. Which makes it closer to true reality than television shows -- or their viewers -- usually admit.

At least for now. It appears we won't have its unvarnished pleasures for long. A notice on the show's official Web site suggests things are changing: "'ElimiDATE' is looking for firemen, policemen, men in uniform, cheerleaders, flight attendants, twins and siblings to cast in upcoming shows!"

Oh well. It was fun -- and in its own way, sincere -- while it lasted.

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