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Other than detective drama, there may be no hotter genre of television programs right now than the dating show. And this new breed is a far leap from The Dating Game.

On Blind Date, cameras follow a couple on their first date while the producers make sharp criticisms. On Elimidate, a dater goes out on the town with a pack of potentials and dumps them one by one. Meet My Folks lets parents choose a weekend fling for their kid, and Extreme Dating brings a person's ex-boyfriends or girlfriends along on a first date. There are several others airing now and networks are currently producing a handful more.

As the shows have become increasingly outrageous (and popular), a new sub-genre has developed: the marriage show. Tonight is the finale of the first season of The Bachelorette, in which one woman selects her perfect mate from 25 hopefuls.

Christianity Today put together a group of Christian singles to discuss this shift in dating shows and how Christians can evaluate them.

LaTonya Taylor, 23, Campus Life assistant editor, recently wrote "Love As Seen on TV" for the Christian teens magazine.

Camerin Courtney, 31, senior associate editor for Today's Christian Woman, wrote the book Table for One: The Savvy Girl's Guide to Singleness (Fleming H. Revell). She also edits CT's online Singles Channel.

Max Hsu, 33, is the founder of the rock band Superchic[k], which often sings about purity, self-worth, and dating.

Todd Hertz, 26, online assistant editor for CT, moderated the panel.

LaTonya: The number of dating shows and their popularity right now indicates that we've applied our microwave and fast food culture to relationships. We want to date a large number of people and to be allowed to whittle them down quickly. It is very business-like.

You get in here, you tell me what you got, you put on your dog-and-pony show and you get in the hot tub, or you're cut from the team.

Todd: What underlies that process is obviously sex. Most of these dating shows today like Blind Date don't hide the fact that people are there to get hooked up. On the Blind Date website, one of the main page headlines is "Getting any?"

It is always a given assumption on programs from Meet My Folks to Extreme Dating that these people are looking for casual sex, not love. However, now we have a new model of shows that has raised the stakes to finding a spouse. But even there, it is clear that sex is key in finding who is "right."

Camerin: Right, the reality dating show milieu has taken a turn from being just about dating to being about marriage. There's this whole new batch of shows including Joe Millionaire, Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire, The Bachelor, and The Bachelorette. [Fox will soon debut Married by America, in which viewers prearrange a marriage.] Suddenly, this genre is seemingly about people wanting to find a life partner.

Todd: Why is that?

Camerin: Statistics show that people are getting married later and later, so maybe there's a whole generation still looking for love and now are getting more serious about it. There's a proliferation of books on finding a spouse.

We as a culture haven't been taught how to find somebody who's really a good partner for us. So this whole generation is looking for love but isn't sure where and how to look.

LaTonya: We have been taught that love is a formula. We subconsciously adopt the myth that buying flowers, romantic trips, chocolates, and stuffed animals make the relationship. It becomes a game to winning someone, so these shows were only natural.

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47