DVD Review: A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season

April 21, 2008

Director: Scott Jeffress
Cast: Tila Nguyen
Rating: Unrated
Studio: Paramount
Release Date: April 15, 2008

Reality TV offers some good and bad entertainment. Any way you slice it, every channel offers some form of reality. You have singing competitions, dating competitions, weight loss challenges, and just about everything else in between. In fact, there is so much reality on television these days that in most cases it is no longer interesting and it’s partly because everything has already been done, rehashed, and done again.

It has now become officially pointless. MTV didn’t get the memo though. Just when you think it could not possibly get any worse they decide to keep creating reality shows. In a perfect world MTV would play music. I know it’s a crazy idea, but the M in MTV stands for Music. However, they insist on creating shows with a reality spin on them. There is one that truly takes the cake and that show is A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.

For people not in the know, Tila Nguyen is a self-professed Myspace giant. I’ve never paid attention to her on Myspace personally, but apparently she is “popular” because she has more friends than anyone on Myspace. Due to this major Godly station she has thanks to having more friends (MTV is aware how easy it is to get friends on Myspace, right?) it only seemed proper to give her a television show about her finding love. Apparently even with all those friends she wasn’t getting any, or something.

The goal was to create a “love” show unlike any other on television. So, here is the spin. Tila is bisexual (we will get to that in a bit) so naturally she cannot just pick a man or a woman, she needs to have a crack at both. On Tila’s show 32, people move in with her and attempt to woo her in any way possible. Sixteen of the people that move in are straight men. The other sixteen people are women. Naturally their presence means they have an attraction to women. However, they are not bisexual, they are lesbians (again, we will get to that in a minute).

Release Information:
Surprisingly enough, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila was a popular show for MTV. I suppose since they took the music off people will watch anything on MTV. Needless to say, it’s one of the most popular shows that MTV has had in years (I wonder why?). While people that enjoy mindless trash mixed with begging morons that want to be “loved” and will do anything to prove it, the media didn’t feel the same way about Tila. Of course, she has comments for most all of the negative reception that she has received.

The Christians didn’t like her or her show and she let them have it (can’t say I blame her there), the NY Post and other media outlets commented on her and she commented right back. In the end, not much has changed. Considering Season 2 is about to air it’s more than obvious the shot at love with Tila wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season includes all of the episodes with unedited audio. There are still some body parts fuzzed out, but any swear words have been left in (and trust me, there are plenty). There is also some special features (God, was this really necessary) to round out the set. This was released on April 15, 2008 and can be purchased just about anywhere for around $30, which is Amazon.com’s selling price.

The A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season Plot
The reason that I don’t like dating shows like this is simple. I like myself. I respect myself. Therefore, it is incredibly easy to avoid the idea of ever going on a show that involves a person disrespecting their entire being. One of three types of people go on dating shows like this. The first type is the person that is desperate. They are so sure that they need love that they will do anything to find it. They have little to no self-respect (though they all deny it) and often do not make the cut because a person that will do something utterly humiliating because you tell them to stops being sexy unless you’re into that kinky sort of thing. These are the ones that claim love five minutes into the second show and swear their world will end when they get kicked off the show.

The next type of person is the drama/attention whore. What better place to get attention than on television? They don’t care so much about winning the relationship. It’s the camera time they want! They are interesting, but it’s usually obvious why they do not have a movie career. Anyone else is kind of the leftovers. Maybe they believe in real love or something like it, but considering the demoralizing nature of a show like this I find that most people fall into group one or two.

I like trashy television, but apparently my standards are higher than this. Trashy dating shows aren’t as amusing as say, reality television that puts 10 people in one trailer or Jerry Springer. So, putting 32 people together to fight over one woman was hardly thrilling to me. Knowing that 16 were lesbians fighting over a bisexual, made things even less exciting for me. If you want to have a GLBT dating show, I’m all for it. However, pitting straight men against lesbians is hardly anything that is going to up the tolerance level in today’s society. It’s going to make homophobes think that bisexual people cannot make up their mind and that lesbians are desperate, loose, and willing to partner flop with any lesbian or bisexual until they get love, or something like it. But hey, it’s all about the ratings, right?

This season offers eleven episodes, which were eleven too many if you ask me. However, people in the 18-24 demographic, most of which were lonely and potentially horny, liked the show a whole lot. That’s the problem with people today, they will watch anything. What’s next? Chloe Latanzzi’s new show, ‘Sing Your Way Into My Heart?’ Contestants could do horrid goth-porn-rock to make her love them. I’m sure that would be a hit, too.

Every single contestant has enough character flaws to make you understand within three seconds why they are on the show. They are shallow, annoying, disgusting, bothersome, annoying, slutty, disrespectful (to themselves and others), desperate, pathetic, and most have seriously low IQs. I don’t know about ya’ll but that sure sounds like something I would want a shot of love at. I’m glad this wasn’t my show. It would have been quick. I would have met them and sent them all home. Of course, I love myself too much to ever stoop to the level of needing a show (and a paycheck, of course) to find someone to love me.

The goal of the show is to get Tila to choose you. So, all 32 idiots do anything they can to themselves and each other to get Tila’s attention. While some of these people look good (with most, you have to be blind in one eye to appreciate) they are so dense and pathetic that they lose their appeal real quick. You might end up feeling sorry for them. I didn’t because I was too focused on the fact that they were idiots, but you might. If you are in a pinch where you hate your life, you could always watch this. I am sure that knowing you’re not one of these people would lift your spirits.

It took one episode for me to hate every one-dimensional, train wreck on this show. Of course, not liking any of these people sure didn’t help my interest level. When you add in the fact that this is anything but original and the skewed bisexuality thing just annoyed me more than anything, I was doomed from the start. I tried to trade this out for someone else to watch, knowing I would hate it, but no one else wanted it either. Lucky me, right?

What is even funnier is that the people who packaged this were about as bright as the contestants. I didn’t watch the show so this DVD set was my first experience with it. However, looking at the box showed me who her final two picks were. Boy that sure took the fun out of watching the 32 idiots ruin their names for a little notoriety. Way to go on that one MTV. A horrid box set is complimented by giving away the ending on the cover. Maybe they were just trying to save me some time.

Storyline/Plot:
Replayability:
Acting:
Directing:

Audio/Visual:
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season is available in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and does not cause too many problems in terms of visual quality. From all I can tell this was most likely identical to the quality that you would have seen if you were watching the show on MTV. There are some issues with grain (too much for a new show) and some overall softness of the episodes, but it’s viewable if you are looking to torture yourself (the content is bad, but you knew that already).

The audio, like the video, could have been better. My biggest complaint is that the audio is fairly bland. Granted a show like this is mostly dialogue, but there is no dynamic here to play off. The audio is what it is and more often than not, it’s just stagnant. Again, I am assuming that the Dolby Digital 2.0 was what was used on the television version. My only other complaint was the need for volume toggling, which can be an annoyance that could have been avoided.

Visual:
Audio:

Bonus Features:
Like all worthless shows, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season offers more than one special feature to force people like me to continue watching while coming up with creative ways to make the torture stop. I think a less professional person might have stuck spoons in their eyes, but I drudged on, patiently hoping the end would come soon. The third disc offers eight extended scenes that add close to an hour of additional content.

The scenes included are:

Girls Cat Walk
Guys in Heels
Foam Party
Car Wash
Ashley vs. Marcus Poolside
Brandi & Rebecca Make Out
Brandi vs. Vanessa
Brandi vs. Vanessa Elimination

The funny thing is that these extended scenes aren’t really that extended. There really isn’t anything here that you haven’t seen before this point. In fact, it seems pointless to even offer these considering how little the additional, original content is.

Next up are six scenes that were previously deleted from the show. You won’t really see anything new here, but if you want to watch them you will be able to take in an extra 35 minutes of show. The scenes include Spin the Bottle, Waxing, Strip Club, Brandi & Vanessa Shower, Ashley vs. Bobby, and Ashley vs. Marcus.

Bonus Features:

Bottom Line:
Like most dating reality shows A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season is absolutely worthless. The added bisexuality in this one with the lesbians fighting over Tila only made it worse. I found it humorous that the girls had to be lesbians. I often wondered why they couldn’t be bisexual like Tila, because I’ve yet to meet a confident, comfortable lesbian looking to devote themselves to a bisexual girl. Of course, being that there is a Season Two, I suppose it doesn’t matter what I wonder or if she ended up picking a male or female. After all, whoever made the cut didn’t make it in the end.

As for Tila’s show, it’s about as worthwhile as her taste in her final pick. A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila: The Complete First Season is not worth buying. Hell, it’s not even worth watching. Avoid if you can because you will be much better off for it in the end. If you want to watch trash television, lord knows, there are much better options available to you.

Overall Rating:

Technorati Tags: Mtv, Box Set, Tila Tequila, Reality Television, Bisexual, Lesbian, Dating Game, Demoralizing, Worthless, Pointless, DVD Review

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