Unless you possess discerning taste in television, or have a life on Tuesday nights (what’s your secret?), you may have noticed the worst show ever has landed—where else?—at FOX (also its shameless Canuck wannabe, Citytv, for smut-rich, cable-poor bitches like myself). And, of course, I effing love it. Drunk fat chicks, too-small prom dresses, implied promiscuity rooted in insecurity; could More to Love get any better? So quit exercising moral standards, or exercising at all, and curl up with a block of Brie and the unofficially-dubbed Fatchelor. Here’s the beefy, cheesy good-times you’ve missed thus far.
Meet Luke Conley: 26 years old (though he looks much closer to forty), self described “chubby chaser” and former college footballer—aka not Pro—standing 6”3 and clocking in at more than a whopping, though unmentioned, 300 pounds. (Astute viewers may notice Luke’s a hundred pounds fatter than the fattest featured girl, but why would astute viewers watch this show?) Then meet the contestants: an endless stream (twenty, actually) of the largest women on tv at one time since Supermarket Sweep. Much like an ANTM premiere, although much fatter, Luke and the FOX overlords begin by cutting whichever girls display the least likely potential for ratings. In this case: the fattest ones. No exceptions.
Whether eliminated or not, the girls cry through all their interviews (“This is my one chance to feel like I can actually be loved”) as their name, hometown and WEIGHT appears on the screen (“Melissa, Baton Rouge, 220 lbs.”). Meanwhile, Luke whittles them to fifteen via promise ring. Says one fleshy fortune-hunter: “I’ve never had something this expensive on my body before; it was sort of like a hug.”
Episode next, format as follows: Since none of the girls seem to have ever been on a date before, Luke pops their first-date cherries in two orgies of seven and one money shot. The first group goes on a pink-champagne-y boat ride, where class-act Heather pukes off the side. Sound terrible? Wait til tomorrow’s date: hungover Luke goes one-on-one with Christina, the least-favourite girl in the house, flying her to Vegas for some candlelit weight talk and a questionably-edited visit to a hotel suite. Can’t get trashier? Third date’s poolside; swimsuits are mandatory. The increasingly d-baggy Luke breaks the ice: “I want us to enjoy each other, let’s party, we’re gonna have some drinks, let’s go to the bar.” Needless to say, things get sloppy.
Luke eliminates the least drunk women at the party, definitively proving my theory that men love trashy lushes.
But don’t be fooled: there’s no real love here. Except the illogical and disproportionate amount given to dickhead Luke, of course. The constant belittling (or maybe befattening) of a dozen of the saddest, tearful girls you’ve ever seen is at best cringe-worthy (see Danielle deep-throat a chocolate-coated banana) and at worst pitiable (“Now it’s going to take me 21 more years to find love”). Although More to Love feels good at the time, you’ll likely be consumed with guilt and shame afterward, much like pizza pizza. Cause in real reality, there are fabulous fat chicks out there who are hot and healthy, like pizza nova.