Lifetime follows the path forged by Bravo (Boy Meets Boy) and FOX (Playing it Straight) when it debuts its own is-he-or-isn’t-he-gay series Gay, Straight, or Taken? tonight at 8 p.m. ET. The network will air two back-to-back half-hour episodes every Monday night.
As the title suggests, every episode follows a woman who has to decide which of three men is gay, straight, and taken (e.g., in a relationship). If she guesses correctly, she wins “a luxurious dream getaway for her and this available bachelor,” according to Lifetime, as if she’d want to travel somewhere alone with the guy. However, “If she makes the wrong call, the man she incorrectly chooses gets her prize instead!” Oh, the drama.
The show’s web site introduces the six men who will be . Is the person with a “competitive streak” straight? Is the one who “has a sense of humor that’s lost on some people” gay? Or is the guy who cuts his own hair straight? Oh, the stereotypes.
Actually, in his review, Variety’s Brian Lowry says the show is “apt to burst stereotypes as much as it promotes them.” But he also points out that the show basically exists as “the perfect vehicle for out-of-work actors who can ham it up during a screening process that, in the pilot, includes touch football, massage and a dip in the pool.” But the New York Post’s Linda Stasi says they are “been-there-seen-them contestants” who inhabit a “mostly snore-bore of a show.”
