A&E Greenlights ‘Love Prison’ Reality Series, 3 Others – TheWrap.

Well, fall is here and so are the new shows. I managed to watch two episodes of A&E’s social experiment called “Love Prison” yesterday and was shocked they could find advertisers for that crap.

Reading some of the advanced press online, they stated one out of every three relationships begins online. Really? I did do a little bit of research on my own and unfortunately the state of online dating is not a happy one. There are just as many online dating commercials as there are bladder leakage ones.

Serviss and Siegel, contestants on Love Prison. © AETV.

The two episodes I watched were train wrecks … I couldn’t look away. Serviss (42) and Siegel (39) were dating for six months. Siegel is from California; Serviss from Long Island.

The other episode I watched was about Rosie, an LA party girl and Chris, a computer nerd from Iowa. They had been dating online for two years. She was wishy washy and he was way to passive. To give you an example, residents of the Love Prison get one phone call during the week – he called his mother.

All I could think about the entire time I was watching … they dumped Longmire for this … crap. Just to get a better skew in the 18-49 demographic. Yikes!

Rosie and Chris, contestants in Love Prison. © AETV

There is hope, however. Some of the other shows they have planned will appeal to the cerebral part of that demographic.

Dogs of War is about a nonprofit organization that pairs veterans with PTSD with adopted dogs who help the veterans transition back into regular life.

Mark Wahlberg (yes of “The Wahlburgers”) is executive producing a show for A&E entitled Big Brew Theory that follows four quirky MIT grads as they pursue their dream of opening a home-grown micro brewery. I bet their parents are proud.

The “Godfather of Pittsburgh” takes a fascinating look at a truly original character who finds it hard to walk the ‘straight and narrow’ and still succeed in business. (That’s their write-up, not mine.)

Other shows in the works include 8 Minutes (working title) which really sounds promising, The Unproduceables, which sounds hysterical and the new show by executive producer Dick Wolf, Dead Again that has a premiere date of Thursday, Oct. 2 at 9pm CT.

I’m covering Dead Again in another post.

Many say that the unscripted “reality” show came out of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike when all 12,000 screenwriters and TV writers in the guild went on strike. It started on November 5, 2007 and ended on February 12, 2008.

I would think that by now networks would realize that America has had its fill of reality shows. Love Prison airs on Monday nights, 9pm CT.