For Love or Money
NBC
Mondays, 9 p.m. / 8 p.m. Central

"For Love Or Money" is NBC's answer to "Joe Millionaire." Fifteen women arrive at a mansion to compete for the attention of a handsome bachelor but soon learn that, unbeknownst to said bachelor, the woman he chooses will win not only his heart, but $1 million. In an added twist, the audience knows that at the end of the show, the winning girl will have to choose between the guy and the cash.

Episode One — All About Paige.

In the neverending quest for a more humiliating reality dating show, NBC presents one in which everyone involved is deceived, and the pretense of finding love is more or less dispensed with altogether.

We first meet the women as they approach the mansion. There's Alima, the 26-year-old virgin, Paige, the born leader who claims she can talk to people from all walks of life, up to and including "the president of Wal-Mart." We learn Melanie has been proposed to five times, and Kelly informs us that she likes to attend "society events" like "Beverly Hills, Aspen and the Hamptons." The most notable thing about the women so far is that nearly all have thick Southern accents.

Upon arrival, the women meet the host, "Boston Public's" Jordan Murphy, a dead ringer for "Will and Grace's" Eric McCormack, who invites them inside.

As the women are checking out the mansion, one of the most poignant and perfect moments in reality television history occurs, with this exchange:

Girl 1, surveying the living room, announces that it would be a good place to read a novel.

Girl 2, looking surprised and sounding almost envious, says, "You read?"

Girl 1 laughs and replies, "Well, I'm going to start reading now that I live in a mansion!"

Since reality dating competition rules dictate that a hero and a villain must be identified within the first 15 minutes of a series, we next see Cristy and Kelly manhandling some paintings they've found in one of the rooms. The painfully earnest paintings, we learn, are the work of 21-year-old Wal-Mart schmoozer Paige. The camera zooms in on one painting in particular, which has a blue background and says "Looking for" at the top with a large pink heart painted under it. Looking for love. Aww.

At this point, the host reveals the show's first twist to the shocked women. He passes out checks to each in the amount of $1 million, and he explains that the bachelor will be kept in the dark about his value-added heart. The women stare at their checks. They joke about keeping them. They stare at them some more. We see a clip of one woman saying to another, "You're about to see the most disgusting side of people." (A motto for reality television if ever there was one. . .)

The women discuss this new development. Hamptons Hussy Kelly, who seems to have learned English from the pages of Cosmopolitan, has a lot to say on the subject, including, "now I can get those new Dior sunglasses that I've been eyeing!" and "most of the people I know, their annual salary is above one million, so it's not that much money."

Not to be out-shallowed, Cristy gives the other girls some perspective: "The bottom line is, we could all marry millionaires if we really wanted to."

And amazingly, she's right. These women are so noticeably better-looking than the average reality dating show contestants that it leads one to wonder if NBC skimped on the compulsory STD screening. How else can we explain their tardy appearance on the reality TV scene?

Finally, we meet the guy, Rob Campos, a former Marine and criminal defense attorney from Dallas. The most notable thing about him is his hair. Wiry yet greasy, bursting with product, his brown hair floats atop his head, ending in an awkward duck tail at the back of his neck that is reminiscent of John Stamos circa 1988. His hairdresser should be severely punished.

Rob arrives at the mansion and is approached by Jordan, who says, with a completely straight face, "Welcome to every man's fantasy come true...they have one thing on their minds, and it's you." With the word "you," he points at Rob. Hopefully, at this point in the taping, the men burst into laughter, but the disturbing truth is that they probably just walked in slow, shameful silence up the mansion steps.

Rob stands on a balcony, and one by one the women walk up to meet him and then turn and walk away as he assesses their asses, committing them to memory. Hamptons Kelly strategically waits to be introduced last, and gives Rob a gift of cookies, which he scarfs down before leaving for the night. Now it's just the girls and champagne. Cristy and Kelly raise hell until 5 a.m., running around, yelling and rifling through the sleeping girls' stuff. The next morning, we learn that one of Paige's paintings has been defiled. The heart in the blue painting has been crossed out and replaced with Cristy's drunken chicken scratches, so that it now reads, "Looking for a big fat piece of meat."

This is quite funny, especially in light of what we will soon learn about Paige, but Paige and the others don't see it that way. When Cristy finally makes it down to lunch the next day, her soulless eyes obscured by huge sunglasses, the girls waste no time in commenting about the painting. Cristy turns to Paige and says false-casually, "Oh, you're mad? I'm an artist. I felt compelled." Whatever this means, it does nothing to improve Cristy's standing among the other girls.

There's a knock at the door. It's Rob, popping in for a surprise visit. Caught off guard, the girls are traumatized, and several run upstairs to primp while others compete for Rob's attention. "I have to seem like I like him so I can get the million dollars," one girl explains helpfully, revealing to us the intricacies of her elaborate strategy.

Rob chats with the girls at the dinner table. As he talks to Stacy, he explains in voice-over, "We weren't really talking, we were just flirting." And by flirting, he means "staring at each other blankly."

"I'm really happy that you're tall," says Stacy, breaking the tense silence.

"Me, too." says Rob. With just two small words, he manages to both sum up his lack of personality and reveal how much he and Stacy have in common.

When he chats with Picasso Paige, Rob can't help noticing the ring on her left ring finger. "It's a promise ring" she says. But before they strike up horror-movie danger music, she explains that she gave it to herself as a vow not to "compromise herself."

"It's a vow of celibacy, basically," she says.

Cut to Paige's after-lunch voice-over, in which she reveals that in spite of the vow, she is not, alas, a virgin.

This was a very poor call. Paige should have saved the celibacy talk until the end, because everyone knows it's an automatic eliminator. Older and wiser Alima shrewdly kept the fact of her own virginity concealed from Rob.

Finally, elimination night arrives. Only 10 of the 15 women will be asked to stay. The others are sent home in shame, "without a limo."

The girls stand before Rob awaiting judgment. One by one, he addresses the girls, asking some to stay and kindly telling others, "it's just not going to work out." Finally it comes down to Cristy and Paige: our pre-fab moral poles. Cristy = bad. Paige = good. One stays and one goes.

Rob summons Paige first. "I enjoyed talking with you," he says, faltering. "You're pretty." Paige grins up at him. But then the unexpected: "But..." he says, "you're only 21, and I'm much older than that, and that-" Paige cuts him off. "But I've dated people much older than you before!"

Poor Paige. She thinks that she can beg her way out of elimination, when the set-in-stone precedent of reality television dating shows dictates that the decision is made long before the ceremony begins.

Rob stammers around for a moment and then says, "I would like to- to invite you to stay." And, with that shocking turn, the ceremony ends. Hapless Cristy was sabotaged by a deceptively sweet born-again virgin who won't take no for an answer. Now she will have to find her millionaire the old fashioned way. But never fear: Hampton's Kelly has been primed and edited to step seamlessly into the newly-vacant role of uberbitch.

In a final, cheesy montage, we see each eliminated girl take her check and toss it in the fire, watching her hopes and dreams reduced to ashes.

Next week: Rob makes an ass out of himself and offends the girls.

— Lindsay Robertson (lindsay@lindsayism.com)