One Love you won't be too Wild about

If you're looking for final, indisputable proof -- and really, at this point, who would think more evidence is needed? -- that the reality-TV genre has completely run out of new ideas, you can consider your search ended with the arrival of Love in the Wild.

NBC's latest summer fill-in series, which premieres tonight at 9 (also on CTV), is such a blatant ripoff of elements from other reality shows that it really should have been called One From Column A, One From Column B and One From Column C.

Of course, that wouldn't be as sexy as Love in the Wild. Immeasurably more accurate, but lacking in audience-attracting sizzle.

So it's Love in the Wild -- a clumsy amalgam of aspects that borrows heavily from long-running favourites Survivor, The Amazing Race and The Bachelor and then sprinkles in a bit of the tawdriness of the late and in-no-way-lamented cancellation casualty Temptation Island.

The series takes place in the jungle of Costa Rica, where 20 young, attractive singles -- 10 men, 10 women -- have been transported in search of a shared goal.

"They have one thing in common," stereotypically Brit-accented host Darren McMullen (actually, sort of a Scot/Aussie hybrid) intones as two cargo planes ferry the contestants above the jungle canopy. "They're all looking for love. In the past, they've tried it all -- Internet dating, speed dating, blind dating -- but they still haven't found that special someone."

Well, with all those romantic avenues exhausted, presumably a few weeks of captive/camp living, punctuated by paired-up daytime adventure competitions and short-term nighttime cohabitations, will provide all the starry-eyed answers they need.

The newly arrived contestants are assembled in an outdoor space, and an old-fashioned schoolyard pick is employed to turn singles into pairs. From there, the teams are sent on a breathtaking adventure race that involves climbing a giant observation tower, collecting water from a jungle stream, retrieving a medallion from a tree and then racing a hand-powered cable car across a deep ravine.

The winning tandem gets to spend the night at "The Oasis," a luxurious suite inside the show's compound; the others are assigned more rustic accommodations and are expected to share quarters with their opposite-sex partners until morning.

There's the requisite dating-show hot-tubbing and hookup-potential explorations, of course, and the next day the group attends the Couples' Choice ceremony, at which each person is given a choice of sticking with the previous day's partner or trying a new pairing.

The last two unchosen singles -- one male, one female -- make the walk of shame out of the game. In the end, the last couple standing will win an all-expense-paid trip around the world.

It is, mostly, rather tired stuff. While the jungle-race adventuring provides an injection of excitement and fun that almost makes Love in the Wild worth watching, the rest of the patched-together reality-romance stuff ultimately turns this show into a dull and all-too-familiar snoozer.

This is one Love you just won't be too wild about.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

TV PREVIEW

Love in the Wild

Hosted by Darren McMullen

Tonight at 9

NBC and CTV