Down the basement, Lock the cellar door

If everyone is allowed one reality show guilty pleasure, mine has to be any of the Road Rules/Real World competition series. However, since Mike doesn't seem to have one, I'm taking his as well and ascribing it to Rock of Love. Really, if you aren't watching this, you're missing out.
Maybe you're avoiding because you saw both Flavor of Love shows and you're saying to yourself, with the exception of hoops on season one, none of the girls were worth flirting with, much less making out with. And you're dead right. Hoops was the anomaly in that system. Seriously, what was she thinking about when she signed up to do that show? I guarantee it was not, "Flavor Flave, now that is a handsome man." The only thing that really scares me is how she hasn't parlayed that fifteen minutes into something else. I mean, far away she was the most attractive, most genuinely believable character that series ever saw. Surely some Lifetime/oxygen made for tv movie needed a young attractive black woman. How could she not make the short list of those who would work for minimal pay?
Or maybe you're reminded of the I Love New York series. Again, plagued from the outset by a lead that is of questionable, at best, affinity. By no means is she in the same class as Flavor Flave, but again, she was one of the thirty or so other girls on his show which made you think to yourself, "well I guess money and fame can't always ensure hot girls liking you." If you did follow that vehicle, you were constantly in suspense though. Not over who was going to get cut, but how big her boobs were going to be in the next episode. Could someone chart this on a line graph? There must be a way to make and episode by episode record of her measurements. What gets me is how she managed to film so many consecutive episodes with the swelling incumbent on such a procedure. Now that's amazing.
But let's get to the Rose Bowl of all reality dating shows that is Rock of Love. Bless you Bret Michaels. Because you spent your prime years hooking up with every girl in sight, you never settled down, and now, a good ten to fifteen years past your heyday, the world can share in your quest for passion. If you missed the first season, know that you missed out on some sweet television. For starters, the girls were more, how do I put this delicately... I can't so I'll say sluttier. I would post it as a 5-2 favorite that at least one girl propositioned someone in the camera crew so that they could get some alone time with Bret. 7-3 Favorite that the crew member obliged.
Looking back though, what gets me is how eerily similar the final went down when compared to Flavor of Love 1. Essentially you had the rebel girl who was loud and flamboyant against the quiet girl who was obviously more attractive, but wasn't as ostentatious, and thus, because they're dealing with celebrities (I'm using that generously), risked losing. In the world void of celebrities, neither of the decisions would have been difficult, but amazingly, both leads chose the the latter of the two, as would any objective bystander. To continue down the scary parallel rabbit hole, both came on the reunion show simply to state that it hadn't worked out, and maybe that the lead chose the wrong person.
Soak that in for a second, the three of you who can remember both shows this specifically.
Now we're at season two of Rock of Love.
Sidebar- Jes, from season one, if you're out there, and roaming through my area, call me. No, seriously. I would take you out for dinner, and if you played your cards right, maybe we could head back to my place and square off on duck hunt. Maybe, but I'd give you a shot.
The new cast is fairly expected. It's like they get 10 people from central casting, five people who are "truly looking for love" who the directors are pretty sure are going to cause something dramatic on a weekly, if not biweekly basis, and five people who are remarkably attractive and on the show because they saw an announcement for a tv show and applied (most notable is the Beauty and the Geek re-tread Megan). With the season opener rolling every other day or so, I'm going to catch one of these and go with the running dialogue. However, on sheer memory alone, Megan and Kristina are the favorites. I'll guarantee that both make the final five, and at least one of them is in the finale. Write that down. It'll happen.
Again, we're just trying to see if I don't get bored with this thing over the next two weeks, so we're sampling all sorts of products.