Shipmates, ElimiDATE offer tasteless, shallow look at dating
I’m pretty sure Chris Hardwick hates his job. Hardwick, the former co-host of MTV’s “Singled Out” with Jenny McCarthy, is back on the television dating scene with Sony Pictures Television’s effervescent reality show, “Shipmates.” The program follows two often disillusioned contestants around a cruise ship while they painfully size each other up and decide if their unworthiness to each other will preclude the eventual dance-floor hookup. Hardwick, in a continuous state of apparent physical and emotional pain, will sigh and roll his eyes as he gives the post date wrap-up, where nail-biting viewers find out if the curious daters have confessed their liking for each other or bitterly left the cruise ship alone. But his wearied attitude and sarcasm regarding the contestants and their important mission is almost vital to the show - it reminds the television audience that despite the overflow of shows like “Shipmates” and its familiar counterparts “Blind Date,” “elimiDATE,” “Dismissed” and “The 5th Wheel,” our culture might not readily embrace the ideals present in every skin-tight episode.
