Do You Love New York?

Reality shows are my thing, so it's no wonder that I was caught up in this VH1 series, I Love New York. "New York" is the stage name of Tiffany Pollard. She was given that name by Flavor Flav on Flavor of Love. When New York was not the winner of Flavor of Love, VH1 cast her in her very own series because she was such a colorful character. When I say colorful, I mean, a girl that you just loved to hate. She was conniving, bold, loud, and determined to win by any means necessary.

Twenty men competed during this first season to win the affection of New York. New York gave them all nicknames.  There were some pretty weird and wild characters on this show.  A few of my favorites were "Mr. Boston", the nerdy accountant, "Real" and "Chance", who were brothers competing for the same woman, "Romance", the nutcase who was obsessed with his dead dog, and "12pack" and "Heat", who were the two well-built muscle men in the group.  The men on the show came from all over the country, and all walks of life.  It was quite an interesting mix, to say the least!

Men can be as petty as women when they are thrown together to live in the same house, trying to win the heart of one woman. They were constantly going to New York to "tattle" on each other.  If there was any dirt on another contestant, they wanted to be the first to tell it.  They told on each other for things such as passing out demo CD's to promote their music, or for having girlfriends at home.  Some contestants were obviously on the show just for the exposure, and not really to win New York's love.  Those men were quickly exposed by the others. 

There were 11 episodes in this first season, and in each one there was a challenge the men had to compete in, in order to win a date with New York. After the challenge, and the date, she held an elimination ceremony where she would send one guy packing. She gave out gaudy "bling" necklaces that said "I Love New York" to each lucky man who was allowed to stay in the competition. For the one who did not get a chain....well, it was history for him.

The challenges were all very different, and were entertaining.  One challenge was called "Mangeant", which was a swimsuit competition for the men.  They strutted their stuff down the catwalk for New York.  This one was pretty funny, and really showed each man's personality in their swimsuit selections.  Another challenge was called "What's Up Dog", where the contestants were broken up into teams and had to build a dog house for New York's chihauhua.  The dog, of course, determined the winner of this challenge when she demonstrated which dog house she liked best.  And my favorite challenge was "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", where all of the old girlfriends were invited to the mansion.  Some pretty interesting information gets revealed in this challenge, when New York takes all of the girls out and digs into each contestant's past.  These are but a few of the competitions held this season to find a true love for New York.

This DVD set also contains the Reunion Show that aired after the show ended. This special let us find out what happened to all of the contestants after the show was over, and whether or not New York found true love with the man she picked as the winner.

Though I was pretty amazed that VH1 found New York to be interesting enough to be the host of her own show, I must say that being the reality queen that I am, I allowed myself to get hooked on this show week after week. The challenges, silly though they were, were quite comical. It never ceases to amaze me what people will do to get on TV. You just have to watch this to see. It's worth a belly laugh or two.

I am going to give this set 3 out of 5 stars, because I really thought some of this "reality" was staged. New York may be entertaining, but she isn't quite convincing sometimes.

Thanks for reading. 

** Parts of this review were previously posted on another site under the user name Fancyface.  This review has been modified for Epinions.**