The Cougar

There are moments of low-down fun, and host Vivica A. Fox adds some genial energy. Let's see where this goes.

It's a well-made show with a proven template, but others including "Ivana Young Man" and "Age of Love" have trod this road before.

TV Land has made a concerted push to achieve a younger profile with original reality shows, but The Cougar manages to feel neither original nor real.

By rights, given all of this material, "The Cougar" should be hilarious. But the show takes itself so seriously that, instead, it feels impossibly sad.

The Cougar defeated my efforts to pay attention to it. I made four honest efforts to contemplate, or even to notice, what was happening in the pilot, and the show kept sliding right off my cerebral cortex.

It's a horrifyingly embarrassing low-rent dating show in which a 40-year-old woman must choose one young cheeseball from among a batch of 20 spoiled curds.

Dating shows tend to be bottom feeders in the "reality" game, but not even the oiliest episodes of "The Bachelor" have ever felt as creepy as "The Cougar."