Temptation Island

Back when reality television first began to make its mark within the television industry, the most popular shows were ones like Survivor, Who wants to be a Millionaire, and The Bachelor.  All of the reality TV shows were all pretty interesting but they were also clean cut and enjoyable for the whole family to watch.  And then Fox launched a different type of reality TV show called Temptation Island that was low-class, contrived, and featured lots of shameless shots of T&A.  It was critically panned and a lot of people hated it.  It was also awesome.

Although there’s a lot to criticize about Temptation Island, you couldn’t help but be entertained by a show that was so shameless.  Hosted by Mark L. Wahlberg (like the actor and former Marky Mark with an L as the initial and nothing like the actor/former rapper known as Marky Mark), Temptation Island had all of the trappings that make a show so unapologetically entertaining: four pretty but obnoxious couples that the audience didn’t mind seeing suffer; twenty-eight sexy singles that were there to party and to basically seduce these contestants and break up their relationships; a beautiful backdrop courtesy of Belize; and so, so, so many body shots.  What a freaking great show Temptation Island was.

Essentially, the premise of the show is that there are four serious couples that want to challenge the strength of their relationship by getting a unique opportunity to live the single life again.  As their mate is also participating in this experience, there shouldn’t be any guilt involved and everyone would have a good time.  The couples think that they’ll get a good time out in the sun, meet some interesting people, have some fun times, then go home with their significant other with a stronger bond.

Of course this doesn’t work out this way.  The couples are separated from each other as the men are forced on one side of the island known as Temptation and the women reside on the other side.  During this time, the couples are kept separate from each other and spend their days partying it up with fourteen sexy members of the opposite sex.  Good drunken times are had on the beach and individual dates are made between newly freed couples and the people on the show whose purpose is to break up relationships.

However, drama unfolds as suspicions begin to creep in.  Inevitably, contestants begin to get paranoid about what their significant other is up to and how much fun they are having.  Contestants question whether their partner feels that their relationship is as strong as they feel it is.  This isn’t helped by the fact that they are able to catch little glimpses of what life is like for their partner on Temptation Island courtesy of evil-genius Mark L. Wahlberg, who it should be mentioned again is not the actor that starred in The Big Hit.

By the end of the show, the couples must decide whether they want to stay together or go their separate ways.  For the most part the couples stay together and claim that this experience really strengthened their relationship.  And once again the FOX Network has taught America another important lesson that love may be the foundation of a lasting relationship but paranoia is an even stronger one!