Horsemen, party of four? Your booth is ready

Last week, I read this review in Slate. Last night, channel surfing at the tail end of a weekend of call, I came across the show itself. Thinking no show could be that bad, and that it might yield an amusing moment or two, I watched a full episode of "A Double Shot at Love with the Ikki Twins," MTV's latest contribution to the world of arts and letters. I share my experience lest you, my friends, have similarly questionable judgement.

With the possible exception of half an episode of the similar Tila Tequila audiovisual excretion, it was by far the worst thing I have ever seen on television. Imagine a "looking for love" dating show dismissed by Paris Hilton as beneath her dignity. Visualize a cluster of "contestants" rejected as "too vulgar" by Jerry Springer. Picture situations so contrived they make the outcome of a Harlem Globetrotters game look like a nail-biting model of suspense. Then imagine something worse.

In the season's first episode, the twins pretend to be one person, a gimmick they appear genuinely concerned will tax their collective brainpower. Their potential paramours are "delivered" via shipping crate by two helicopters, and while I relish the irony of seeing them treated like a dehumanized commodity so blatantly, I don't believe for a minute that this how they actually arrived. As they stampede around the glossy set, the tarts and meatheads spend time one- (or two-) on-one with one twin or the other, oozing hormones and occasionally swapping saliva. The girls dress up in skimpy (or skimpier) animal costumes, the boys in "superhero" duds, in parades of flesh with all the wit and sexiness of public executions. And then seven are sent home, with faux expressions of regret. Bleah.

This show makes Hee-Haw look like Lysistrata. In retrospect, Singled Out feels like a lost gem of class and manners on par with a Wharton novel. An infinite number of monkeys flinging excrement at an infinite number of typewriters could write better copy.

I would write that it is metaphysically impossible for TV to sink much lower, but I refuse to underestimate the folks at MTV. But, until we are treated to The Real World: Roman Vomitorium or someone pitches the competitions from "The Running Man" as actual show ideas, we'll have to content ourselves with "A Double Shot at Love" as the new nadir in human entertainment.