Friday, Sep 5, 2008
"Temptation Island," Episode 1: Babealicious women! Hunkariffic guys! Doomed couples!
Jan 11, 2001 | The credits have not yet run, and already there is remorse.
A stricken youth, a fashionably bald fellow, faces the camera as Satan-movie music plinks in the background.
"I feel like I've sold my soul to do something fantastic, which is to come to this place ..."
A title card fades up: "Tempt, (v) 1. To entice or induce."
"... And now the fun is over and I'm paying for it."
Soon we will learn the lad goes by the name of Billy. Billy cannot see the cards. He is on a beach in Belize, and he is unhappy.
"And I hate to say it's a mistake, but ..."
There is a slow-motion shot of a woman in a bikini, blinking languidly.
"Now I'm in hell."
The plinking is followed by a sonorous plonk.
Welcome to "Temptation Island" -- Fox's answer to the Stanford Prison Experiment, only with sand. Four "committed" couples "at a crossroads in their relationships" have traveled together to a paradisiacal island resort where they will be separated by gender and then tossed into a pleasure pit with "13 fantasy singles" of the opposite sex "chosen specifically to entice them" -- horny kids in bathing suits who say things like "Wet and wild!" and "I like it hot!"
Look, boss! The plane crash!
Our beach-strolling host is a Jeff Probst manqué named Mark Walberg (no relation to actor Mark Wahlberg), who addresses the guys as "Gentlemen" and is capable of saying things like "OK, I have work to do," while keeping a straight face.
"Who will stay together?" asks Mark as he thoughtfully approaches us, the concerned viewers at home. "Who will be torn apart? Who will return to their lives with the partner they arrived with? And who will return alone?"
Who will really care? As long as they keep the public sexual humiliation of others coming.
The four couples are:
From Malibu, Calif., Shannon, a dead ringer for Gwyneth Paltrow with achingly obvious low self-esteem, and Andy, a greasy lad with darting, roving eyes and a dangerously inflated self-image. He's all puffed up -- Look out! He's gonna blow! Shannon and Andy have been together five years. How or why is beyond us.
Couple No. 2, from Atlanta, Ga., consists of Mandy, an orange-haired "singer/waitress," and Billy, whom we've already met. Billy is young. Billy is innocent. Billy is in love. Billy is screwed. When she isn't affectionately shaving his head, Mandy likes to say funny-scary things to Billy. One time, she kissed another boy in front of him. "Although I think Mandy and my relationship is extremely strong, there's no telling what's going to happen when she gets there," he says.
Cut to Mandy wondering aloud if this will be the last she sees of his driveway.
Taheed and Ytossie are from Los Angeles. (Pronounced "why-tossie" -- just the question Taheed has been asking himself for five and a half years.) Taheed has "stepped out" of the relationship before, we learn immediately. Ytossie wants to "test" him to see if he'll be faithful under extreme duress. Why she hasn't ytossied him earlier is unclear.
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