AGE OF LOVE Recap: Meet the Cougars

A kind and warm Give Me My Remote welcome to our newest recapper SB.  SB will be taking on the role of recapping NBC’s summer reality show AGE OF LOVE.  If you didn’t catch last night’s premiere episode or thought you might want to skip out on this show completely, give SB’s recap a read and she might just change your mind.  Let’s show SB the GMMR love, and by love I mean comments.

Episode: One
Original Air Date: 06.18.07
GMMR Recapper: SB

Before I start this recap, there are things you should know about me. I’m a 26-year-old female and I love trashy reality shows. They’re as much a guilty pleasure for me as poppy rap, and I’ve not only watched The Bachelor—no, no. It started in college with Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire and I was so addicted to trainwreck TV that I started watching Joe Millionaire. And now I realize that those post-college single days of watching The Bachelor were just filler, just biding my time, waiting for the next really “special” reality dating show. And it is Age of Love.

The show had not even started yet when Billy (the boyfriend) and I started giving each other the sidelong looks and trying not to laugh. One of the first lines of the season preview was a Cougar (one of the 40-year-olds) saying, “If they wanna get nasty … we’ve been getting nasty for a lot longer.” Nice! I already love the editing on this show.

They’re really doing the Cougars a favor here by holding off the Kittens (20-year-olds) and letting us get to know them first. You totally hate to think it and admit it, but we’re a totally prejudiced society and hot 20-something females rule the world. Meanwhile, 40 is totally the new 30, or so I hear, and these women do NOT look like typical 40-year-olds. For the most part. And man, I am going to just admit to you right now that I am totally predisposed to hate the Kittens—I already imagine them to be bitchy and spoiled and immature—but I am also predisposed to cringe at the Cougars. I worry (and hope, a little, for the sake of entertaining recaps), that they will be desperate and a little pathetic. And later, when a Kitten echoes this sentiment, I feel really embarrassed and ashamed of myself. Still, it was probably intentional on the part of the producers.

We finally get to “meet” Mark Philippoussis, who I am familiar with because I once had a roommate in college who was obsessed with him. She was also obsessed with The Little Mermaid, but for purposes of this recap, that’s really here nor there. Just thought you might like to know. Anyway. He plays tennis, he’s Australian, he’s pretty cute I guess, but I am not finding anything about him interesting. One of my friends who is into tennis e-mailed me to tell me that his tennis nickname is The Scud, and I was desperately hoping for a good excuse to call him The Scuzz, but so far … nothing. He’s boringly polite. They did manage to catch my interest, though, when they said he couldn’t be alone any longer so he went out and got a dog, and they showed the cutest little Rottweiler puppy in the world! I wish this were a show about him and his canine companion, and not just about him and a bunch of dogs. Zing! I would watch that show. If I had insomnia. And it was on at 3 a.m. And if I had cable, since I’m pretty sure it would be on Animal Planet.

The women are also apparently watching this video of Mark, when Lynn tells us that he has a full head of hair. “You just want to play with it!” Hey Office fans! That’s what she said!

The time comes for Mark to meet the ladies. He says upfront in an interview that he expects that they’ll be beautiful women in their 20’s. They repeat that several times, just in case you missed your first three beatings over the head. One of the women wants to “blow his mind.” Oh, is that all?

Lynn comes out and tells Mark she’s 40, and suddenly I know why they showed the puppy—Mark looks like someone just killed it. Kelli comes out and I was too distracted by thinking about how terrible she would look in HD to really pay attention to Mark’s reaction. I mean, even on regular TV, it was rough. Girlfriend is like the poster child for why sunscreen is good. Jayanna comes out and Mark gets this look on his face like he has just realized that he’s headed for the gas chamber. Jodie tells us that she doesn’t act her age, asks Mark if he’s ever dated a 46-year-old, and I seriously thought he might throw up.

Finally, we get the sweet reprieve of a commercial and Billy suggests I make a joke about how the milk’s gone bad. And that is why I love him.

After the commercial, I am kind of onto their little game. I really think they’re making Mark’s reactions look much worse than they were, because they show him being nice to Jodie. Still, it makes for better TV, so I’ll take it. I will suspend disbelief and play your little games, Age of Love!

Next comes Maria. Oh, Maria. She thanks Mark for being a “special slice of [her] life” and even through the TV, I can smell the desperation. She reeks of it like a seventh grade boy with his first bottle of cheap cologne. Or, if you were in seventh grade at a certain time, CK One. Maria says that Mark gave her butterflies, and I must say—she is everything I was hoping for out of the Cougars. I am embarrassed for her. I hate, and yet love, watching her.

Angela is 41, and she gets the Sound Effect of Doom. At this point, Mark has started laughing and they even edited in a very funny “Oh, s***.”

Jennifer is another one providing horror for me. I want either want her and Maria to become frienemies or arch nemeses. I think either one would bring all sorts of hilarity into my life, and isn’t that what this is really about? Anyway, as a preview to the Creepiest Moment of the Episode, which is coming, Jennifer delivers Most Awkward Moment of the Episode when she forces Mark to guess her age. He doesn’t want to and tries to stall, but she is relentless. He even way low-balls it and guesses 36, even though they’ve all been in their 40’s, and she doesn’t let him off the hook. After maybe three guesses she puts him out of his misery and tells him she’s 48. I was peeking at this atrocious scene through my fingers while Billy laughed hysterically and said that Mark looked like she just told him she has both male and female genitalia.

A bunch of typical dating show crap ensues. Hanging out on a boat, alone time, women underhandedly complimenting each other, jealousy over Mark’s time, and lots of talking about this so-called trend of younger men and older women. And to that I say … no. I am not buying it. Just because Ashton Kutcher did it does not make it a trend. You could potentially point out Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz, but look at how that turned out. Maybe you know someone in your own life, but thinking of two examples does not make it true enough for me. There was that episode on Sex and the City, but … wait, what? That’s not real? Seriously? Yes, seriously, people! It’s not real! Meanwhile, I’m not really old enough to have been the “older woman” and I’m obviously not a guy, but I really think this is something that older women are pushing for more than anyone else. I get the appeal of the whole Mrs. Robinson thing, but that’s an entirely different matter. That is not dating, that is sex, and that is like a young, stupid, teenage boy thing. And it’s still kind of creepy to me, but I at least understand what the guy would be thinking. But why in hell would a 20-something guy, let alone a 30-something guy, want an older woman? As was discussed more times than I was interested in, their clocks are ticking. They want to get married. They have baggage and issues and kids and ex-husbands. They’re probably NOT as hot, at least not in the purely piece of meat way. It’s not to say that they can’t be beautiful and maybe I’m not giving guys enough credit in this area, and maybe you’ll hate me for saying it, but we live in a shallow culture and while I know that there are people out there who are above it, there are a whole lot who aren’t. That’s all I’m saying. Also, women live longer. That means that the older you get, the more competition there is. I’ve heard stories about old men in retirement homes not being able to go anywhere without being mobbed by old women looking for a husband. So do with that what you will.

Back to the subject at hand, I promised you earlier The Creepiest Moment of the Episode, and it is now time. Jennifer actually says, “He’s my son’s age but I can see myself falling for him.” Oh, gross. Sorry! I am trying really hard to not be misogynistic and age discriminatory here, but there is something about that sentence that just makes my stomach turn a little. And it may actually have very little to do with age and way more to do with bringing her son into it. Which sounds … not how I meant it. But I think you get my drift.

And then we have another scene of Maria and her eau de desperation, begging Mark to speak Greek to her. Seriously, where did she learn about flirting and interpersonal relationships? By watching Degrassi Junior High? Seriously, I’ve seen more game in a Hilary Duff movie. We get a clip of Mark trying to talk himself into this older woman thing, and I start to really wonder … where are the Kittens? And I start wishing for them even more the moment I see Maria in a talking head announce in a very weird and pathetic way, “I’m gonna bring it on!” and then doing a “girlfriend” snap. You know, the one in a Z formation. Oh, it was so lame. I can’t believe that the universe didn’t implode from that much lameness in one concentrated area. And apparently while I was still reeling from that, I missed one of the other Cougars raising the roof.

You guys. Come on. You are in your 40’s and you have to embrace that. You are doing awesome by not wearing tapered leg pants and like tapestry cat vests or something. I’m proud of you, mostly. But when you try to be cool, it has the exact opposite effect. Because let me tell you something. Raising the roof is not cool when anyone does it, and especially not when you do it without a hint of irony. Feel free to make age-appropriate references and I will not make fun of you. Talk about what a babe George Clooney is, or even how you had a crush on Magnum PI in the 80’s. Hate rap music. Whatever it is you people do, just do it. Trying to act like you’re in your 20’s when you’re not is only serving to remind us that you’re not. I really think, from a strictly “playing the game” standpoint, that these women would be best served to play it super cool, and be kind of mysterious and vixen-y. To go back to this, play up the Mrs. Robinson angle. Make it sort of taboo. Don’t remind him of his mom, who asks about that new cool singer James Blunt or wonders if he had a good time at the Sigma Chee frat house. You know?

First glimpse of the Kittens! They’re getting off a helicopter and they are every bit as bitchy as I’d hoped. Come and save the show, Kittens! (By the way, I think it would be funnier in regards to the Kittens if he was a fireman, so he could rescue them from a tree. But that could just be me.)

Meanwhile, back in Boringville, Lynn, Maria, and Jayanna are going on a date with Mark, which turns out to be rappelling off a building. Jayanna does exactly what you’d expect someone on one of these shows to do, which is play damsel in distress and then of course do it anyway, to show her “adventurous” side. Maria, of course, notices this, compliments how she played it, and said Jayanna is definitely going to fight for Mark. And it’s funny, because none of that sounds anywhere near as catty and irritated as it really was. And that’s something that really strikes me about the Cougars. They are every bit as catty and hateful to each other as younger women, but they have gotten more sophisticated about hiding it and more subtle with the digs. But it’s still there.

We’re getting ready to meet the Kittens, and that of course means that we need a Cougar montage of someone doing laundry and someone else doing NEEDLEPOINT. Sigh. I just look at needlepoint and fall asleep. The Cougars gather in a room and discuss the group date, which is where I notice for the first time that Jayanna is a hand-talker. And it annoys me. Greatly. She tells us in a talking head that she is “the one to beat.” Yes, please. I would love to beat Jayanna.

Everyone is gearing up for the least interesting elimination ceremony ever. And that takes some doing, after all these years of reality TV. One of the Cougars again wants me to punch her for making a Sanjaya ponyhawk joke. Yes, you’re so cool and relevant. We get what you are going for (and failing at). Mark, meanwhile, looks like he’s getting dressed for his own funeral. Jayanna bestows upon us the Most Pathetic Moment of the Episode by telling us that if you get sent home, you feel like you “may just end up alone, forever.” Jayanna, I hope for all of mankind that you DO end up alone, forever. Someone needs to get Jayanna one of those Dairy Queen rip-off t-shirts that says Drama Queen. Tell her it’s what all the kids are wearing, I’m sure she’ll be all over it.

I’ll spare you the boring details. Jodie gets the boot, and on top of that, it comes with a side of “I only like you as a friend.” She says, “Oh,” like a Stepford Wife, and that’s the end of that. I have to confess that I had to double check my notes to see if she was the one who would be terrifying in HD, and she was not. That was Kelli, who I am now naming Crypt Keeper. Still, I think Mark digs the brunettes. Represent! Except I am currently a bottle blonde.

Ah, the Kittens. We only get to see them for a minute, but Mark looks like the 16-year-old kid whose parents pretended they forgot his birthday and then surprised him with a suped up Camaro. That’s what all the cool kids are driving these days, right? RIGHT? I wanna be cool!!!

Next week: Cougars, Kittens, catfights … I’m so there.

SB has many interests, including photography, her pets, entertainment, traveling and writing. She does have a day job, but that mostly amounts to her being a sarcastic young woman with a lot of time on her hands, which is why she appreciates the opportunity to recap.

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