Last year, Tila Tequila—a “bisexual” MySpace celebrity who grievously mistakes purring for singing and overexposure for fame—pioneered a new low in reality TV: having 12 straight guys and 12 lesbian girls compete for her affection. Live. On MTV. It was such an unbelievable, depressing spectacle, that MTV pulled in record ratings and began running the show almost around the clock. Tila picked Bobby Barnhart, an aw-shucks country boy, to be her “true love.”

This year, MTV couldn’t resist trying to re-create Tila’s success. But, as the new show, A Double Shot At Love quickly has proved, the watchability of the first season had everything to do with Tila’s loathsome/magnetic personality. Now, bi-sexual, identical twin sisters are holding the keys to the Shot at Love mansion, where 12 young hopefuls of each sex are fighting for their affection. In December 2007, David Sessions wrapped up the first season of A Shot at Love by saying Bobby, the finalist, was the real loser. His article is reprinted below.

For the record, everything they say about MTV is true (except for Boiling Points, which I can watch for hours). It’s a beacon of fakeness, full of concocted social scenarios that the human psyche was probably never meant to endure. The latest and most popular of those, the reality show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, had the makings of a television event: Tila Tequila, a purportedly bisexual young woman who’s turned herself into a minor celebrity on MySpace, would pick a lover from a crop of 32 young hopefuls—half of them straight guys, the other half pretty lesbians. After reports that Tila’s bisexuality was faked and a minor Christian outcry failed to stick, the show took over MTV’s programming schedule and became an unexpected hit.

I first encountered the show by accident, lying awake late at night and turning on the television. I caught two episodes (they re-air back to back day and night), and was intrigued: a moderately famous girl figuring out her sexual orientation on camera, while eliminating toward her perfect match? If you could stomach the howl-inducing talk of “connections” and “love,” and Tila’s occasional vapid, moralizing lectures to contestants, it might (entirely by accident, most likely) unearth some raw realities about the nature of attraction. Or at least prove an interesting social experience—how do different personalities and sexual orientations handle living in one house (and sharing a giant bed), all while competing for the same person?

Not so. Episode after episode, the manufactured plasticity rolled on. The aggressive, hypersexual Tila, who has approximately the subtlety of a blow-up sex doll, always managed to stifle any natural interaction with mood-killing lines like “Oh look! We’re spending quality time together!” Courting Tila’s affections was, like on any good reality show, more of a spin campaign than a personal relationship. By week three, contestant interviews were full of laughable declarations of love and assurance of heartbreak should they be cut at the evening’s elimintation. Fortunately for the losers, they probably have a better shot at finding lasting love without Tila.

After narrowing the field to Bobby, a soft-hearted, mainstream-Hollister-boy film student from New York, and Dani, a tomboyish, good-natured, and unfailingly genuine firefighter from Florida, Tila went for the guy in last night’s finale. Not that this was a surprise; throughout the series, Tila’s one-on-one dates with the female contestants had felt much more like girlfriends gabbing over martinis with a forced sexual undertone. The girl dates played out in sharp contrast to her dates with the guys, especially the later ones with Bobby, where there seemed to be some almost genuine communication and palpable sexual tension.

Bobby should be somewhat reassured at the knowledge that Tila probably doesn’t have more than a casual interest in women, but one wonders if he knows what prize, exactly, he has earned for himself. If there’s one thing the show does well, is that it inspires unmerited sympathy and empathy for Tila, who struts around the set proclaiming her own greatness and tries to shock nice guys’ moms by eschewing even basic elements of etiquette in their homes. From the first episode I watched, where I was introduced to Tila’s clothing-averse self, the question nagged: why would any guy want to be in more than a one-night-stand with this person?

Because any way you look at it, Tila Tequila is quite possibly the most famous hobag in America. She is incapable of doing anything that isn’t drenched in sexuality, from her show, to her awkwardly graphic music videos, to her records (one tastefully titled The Sex EP), to her constant posing for men’s magazines, and plenty of nude photographs online. So Bobby hasn’t gotten anything that any man in the world can’t get with a few clicks of his mouse. And as proud of all that as some guys might be, I doubt very many of us would be delighted at the prospect of a girlfriend whose primary talents are pole dancing, singing badly, and distributing racy photos of herself on the internet.

Just as American Idol runners-up often come off better than the winners (nearly equal fame, cult fan base, no entangling record obligations), the last few eliminated contestants on A Shot at Love walked away with better deals than Bobby. Dani, as well as semifinalists Ryan and Amanda, get to take their new fame and opportunities back to their own worlds, where they aren’t subject to constant patronization by an airheaded, sex-obsessed, D-list celebrity. Bobby, an average, good-looking dude who could have gotten himself a nice girlfriend and had a fun life, has to pay for his victory with a highly-publicized relationship. Hopefully he’s ready to milk it for what it’s worth and laugh it off. But it seems likely that his “shot at love” will change his life forever, and not necessarily to his liking.