Before pondering “Love Island,” we should remember that CBS is semi-sacred ground.
This is the land of Lucy and Letterman, the home of Murrow and Cronkite and “60 Minutes.” It’s the “Tiffany Network,” where Ed Sullivan gave us Broadway and the Beatles and where Norman Lear and MTM transformed comedy. It’s still the home of the Tonys and Grammys and Kennedy Center Honors.
And now it’s where Caro Viehwig, 21, explained that “my hair is my best quality.”
And where Alana Morrison, also 21, announced: “I got a nice butt. I really do.”
Viehwig, incidentally, set a TV record by saying “Oh, my God” approximately 3.2 trillion times in the first few minutes of “Love Island.” She said it when meeting each of the other four women, when seeing their resort and, of course, when seeing the five guys.
In her defense, they are oh-my-God guys. They range from Weston Richey, 25, a Dallas photographer who insists “I’m a real cowboy” to Yamen Sanders, 24, a Los Angeles real-estate agent who explains that his best qualities are “my smile and my genuinity.”
Sanders soon doubts (correctly) that “genuinity” is a word. And he says his true love “could look like anything …. It’s all about the personality.”
That look-like-anything claim won’t be tested here. All the women and men are gorgeous, as is the Fiji resort. All arrive in swimwear, assuming that one swims in high heels.
Their show is taking over CBS. It grabs five hours a week (8 p.m. weekdays); add three weekly “Big Brother” hours and the “Big Bang”/”Mom” network suddenly has zero comedies.
Instead, it has revolving-door romance. Once these 10 are paired up, we meet Kyra Green, 22, a musician. On the second show, she’ll take one of the guys; gradually, new people will arrive and exit.
The goal? “I’m trying to find someone the organic way,” says Cashel Barnett, 27, a model and musician. Zac Mirabelli, 22, a grocery-store cashier, also speaks of finding someone organically. That’s if we decide a TV dating show is an organic way to meet your life partner.
Morrison brings no expectations. “I’m just gonna let Jesus take the wheel and see how it goes.”
Which could be a problem. Jesus may have already switched channels.