Average Joe ???
Posted by: Minky on 18 December 2003
I've resisted "reality series" like the plague up until now. My reasoning was that they were crappy crap for crappy mofo's. Imagine my surprise when this week I found myself looking forward to the next instalment of "Average Joe". It started innocently enough. I found the advert mildly interesting and happened to be in the room when the first instalment started. "Sit down if you are staying" she said. "No way am I staying" I said as I sat down.
The premise is pretty simple. Take a bunch of "average" men and present them to a shallow shiny plastic American woman and, given time, watch her come to the staggering realisation that looks are not everything.
A few problems. Firstly all the average men are not created equal. In amongst the fatties (that spend all of their time drinking beer, farting and doing gigantic dive-bombs in the pool) and skinnies (including one with a brace of hearing aids) there are a few not-so-average men like Zak. Over the next few weeks we see the fatties, skinnies and spasties tearfully eliminated to cries of "we had a connection which I wished I'd had more time to explore, BUT .. (i.e. fuck off)".
So pretty soon we are left with the least average of the Joes, one of which Shiny lady is pretty hot for. Zak. Now, for fun, the producers throw in three male supermodels. Remembering how Shiny's bottom lip had quivered as the first tranche of dorks came off the bus in episode one made the explosion of sexual glee as the uber-joes pranced in all the more poignant.
So, now the point seems to be that, having got to know the average Joes as human beans she will now forsake beauty in favour of more than skin-deep attributes. Not quite. From the original 12 average and 3 super-Joes we somehow manage to arrive at 2 of each. What's the statistical probability of that Don Atkinson ?
The rest is too painful and boring to go into. There's a "Shallow Hal" thing where they dress Miss Shiny in a fat suit and secretly film the Joes taking the piss. That puts paid to Zak and the token geek was never really a contender (too much crying) and then we have two.
OK, so in the final episode she has to choose between funny, popular, RICH (it turns out) Mr Average and pretty (and that's about it) shiny boy and (drum roll) surely this is where we get to find out that the Average Joe does have a shit-show with the plastic girl ? Nope. She chooses pretty boy. WHAT ?
As the credit rolls a voiceover tells us that the happy couple didn't even make it to the holiday ..
The next series is set in Hawaii and appears to feature an ex Miss USA and a bunch of extras from the set of deliverance.
Can someone explain to me :
1) Why I watched this shite.
2) Why she chose the Poofty.
3) Why our two soul mates lasted for less than a nanosecond.
4) Why are these programs.
5) Whether I am likely to watch the next series (careful answering this one – my life is in the balance here).
The premise is pretty simple. Take a bunch of "average" men and present them to a shallow shiny plastic American woman and, given time, watch her come to the staggering realisation that looks are not everything.
A few problems. Firstly all the average men are not created equal. In amongst the fatties (that spend all of their time drinking beer, farting and doing gigantic dive-bombs in the pool) and skinnies (including one with a brace of hearing aids) there are a few not-so-average men like Zak. Over the next few weeks we see the fatties, skinnies and spasties tearfully eliminated to cries of "we had a connection which I wished I'd had more time to explore, BUT .. (i.e. fuck off)".
So pretty soon we are left with the least average of the Joes, one of which Shiny lady is pretty hot for. Zak. Now, for fun, the producers throw in three male supermodels. Remembering how Shiny's bottom lip had quivered as the first tranche of dorks came off the bus in episode one made the explosion of sexual glee as the uber-joes pranced in all the more poignant.
So, now the point seems to be that, having got to know the average Joes as human beans she will now forsake beauty in favour of more than skin-deep attributes. Not quite. From the original 12 average and 3 super-Joes we somehow manage to arrive at 2 of each. What's the statistical probability of that Don Atkinson ?
The rest is too painful and boring to go into. There's a "Shallow Hal" thing where they dress Miss Shiny in a fat suit and secretly film the Joes taking the piss. That puts paid to Zak and the token geek was never really a contender (too much crying) and then we have two.
OK, so in the final episode she has to choose between funny, popular, RICH (it turns out) Mr Average and pretty (and that's about it) shiny boy and (drum roll) surely this is where we get to find out that the Average Joe does have a shit-show with the plastic girl ? Nope. She chooses pretty boy. WHAT ?
As the credit rolls a voiceover tells us that the happy couple didn't even make it to the holiday ..
The next series is set in Hawaii and appears to feature an ex Miss USA and a bunch of extras from the set of deliverance.
Can someone explain to me :
1) Why I watched this shite.
2) Why she chose the Poofty.
3) Why our two soul mates lasted for less than a nanosecond.
4) Why are these programs.
5) Whether I am likely to watch the next series (careful answering this one – my life is in the balance here).
Actually, you could look at my mucker Mekon's analysis and apply some of it to question #2. 
Maybe he wasn't so "average" in other areas the audience couldn't see 