the show that lacks x-factor

I had no choice this evening but to watch the latest franchised reality show on local TV while eating since the remote was acting up again and I was too lazy to stand up and look for a decent channel. During the first few minutes, two things caught my attention: 

1) the lifelessness of the host; and
2) the beauty of the contestants.

Beauty and sexiness were obviously big, ahem, factors in choosing the contestants! 

As the minutes passed, it quickly became apparent that the show was giving certain participants more airtime. This being my first time to watch, I have no idea if they focus on a different set of individuals per day but out of all the contestants in tonight’s episode, there were only 4 or 4 who were interviewed and who were actually shown participating in the contest. I was quite surprised when the camera panned over the contestants as the show was about to end–that was the only time I spotted a local actress as she never had a close-up moment or even a cameo in the entire 30 minutes that I was watching. 

I was also confused with the concept of the show. In the middle of the stunts, the contestants were told that they were going to practice dancing the tango. It totally had nothing to do with the show and was not even offered as an incentive so what was that all about?! They never even actually showed the contestants dancing except for a really short clip; they only showed interviews of some of the couples after the experience. If the purpose of that whole tango thing was to give the viewers a glimpse into the culture of a foreign country, the whole point was lost in translation. If it was inserted in order to heighten the anticipation for the next stunt, it also failed. When the host announced that after all that dancing they would be having dinner while watching trained dancers perform, I thought the food would be insects, bugs or some exotic food but I was wrong. It was a normal, uneventful dinner.

The thing that bothers me the most is that all of them, while they are undoubtedly gorgeous, lack appeal. They’re just so…boring. When the final task was revealed, they screamed half-heartedly and looked unsurprised by the ‘twist.’ The host, too, was just too deadpan and robotic. 

Bottom line? The show sorely lacks X-factor.