America is Ignoring 'Labor of Love,' a Reality Show Where Guys Compete to Impregnate a 41-Year-Old Smokeshow. Go Figure.

Variety - “Labor of Love,” Fox’s new show which matches 41-year old Kristy Katzmann

...with 15 potential fathers to her child, debuted to pretty poor numbers on Thursday night. 

The show’s premiere scored a 0.2 rating among adults 18-49 and drew only 909,000 total viewers, which represents the weakest debut of the season for Fox in both metrics. Earlier on, “Celebrity Watch Party” aired its third episode to a 0.3 rating and 1.4 million total viewers. 

I have to say, I am surprised by the incredibly low ratings of a show where guys compete for the right to have unprotected sex with Kristy Katzmann and her sort of lukewarm, middle class man's Marisa Tomei vibe. This just seems like a natural to me. The next evolutionary step in the Reality TV dating genre. 

It started out back in the late 60s, slithering out of the primordial ooze with "The Dating Game." It began to walk on all fours in the 80s with "Love Connection." By the 90s it began to walk on its hind legs with "Studs" and all your celebrity shows like "Flavor of Love." "The Bachelor/Bachlorette" are its Homo Erectus, and they're obviously huge cultural phenomenons. So dating competitions have gone from game shows with dates as the prize to the promise of sex to marriage. Extrapolate that out, and it only makes sense the next thing on the list is winning the right to fertilize the eggs of someone you've known for a month. 

And yet, America shrugged. They've given "Labor of Love" a good leaving alone, even as collectively bored and starved for any kind of distraction the country is. For some reason, the public wants to see Hannah B. or whomever fly helicopters to the summit of tropical islands and listen to men say how "vulnerable" they are over glasses of champagne and maybe bang in a hot tub and get engaged, but we draw the line at the winner of such a show planting his seed in Kristy Katzmann fallow field. We like the plowing, but not the planting. 

I mean, the numbers don't lie. Half a million people who were tuned into the can't miss, adrenaline-rich excitement of "Celebrity Watch Party" took one look at "Labor of Love" and flipped to something else. That's one third of the audience. I imagine Fox could've aired a rerun of "Herman's Head" and held onto a bigger audience. 

Regardless, the public has spoken. We really do want the romance. We're just not interested in the bareback sex, the pregnancy and the actual baby-making "LoL" is offering. Maybe if they pivot real quick and say Kristy will get on the pill and just in for the commitment-free sex with no consequences or responsibility to follow, they can save the show. But it might be too late. 

I wish the networks would finally just wise up and give us the "MILF Island" we've been waiting for. Kristy Katzmann would be perfect for that.