Some singles looking for dates online occasionally lie about their ages.
Shocking revelation No.2: Some of those looking for dates online post what might be called flattering (i.e. misleading) pictures of themselves that tend to disappoint or anger their hopeful dates upon meeting.
These are among the rather obvious tidbits in “Hooking Up,” a summer-soft ABC News documentary about online dating. If those facts come as news, you’re probably out of the dating pool.
The five-part series premiering Thursday (8 p.m. on KMGH-Channel 7) confirms everything you had heard about the travails of finding a mate in Manhattan.
Did you know that some 40 million Americans use the various Internet dating services to hook up? Online dating is a billion-dollar industry, the report observes, used by all sorts of successful and outgoing types, not just the lost and lonely. That’s where the traditional documentary reportage ends and the “reality show” conventions begin. The producers chronicled a dozen women in New York, age 25-38, over the course of one year. A gynecologist, a hair-salon manager, a yoga instructor, a real-estate agent, a second-grade teacher, a paralegal and an opera singer are among those in search of Mr. Right, wearing microphones, talking to cameras, sharing their phone conversations.
Several are haunted by ticking biological clocks; some tell first dates they are looking for the father to their future children. Like ABC’s other stable of (fictional) women, they’re rather desperate.
Sonja, 38, the owner of a health food store, says: “I do not shop online except when it comes to men.”
This is fun summer viewing, a passive way to hook up with a growing trend and safer than hooking up in person. You’ll either be glad already to be partnered or relieved to see other singles in the same agitated state.
A voyeuristic kick, the effort tells us something about modern dating rituals, but it is equally instructive regarding the state of network documentaries.
“Hooking Up” is a disposable doc, a not-quite-salacious but certainly lightweight tour.
The folks at ABC News are smart enough to know when to dumb it down. Previously producer and executive producer Terence Wrong tackled biological warfare; the African rain forest; Vietnam veterans; the brilliant “Hopkins 24/7,” a hair-raising documentary tour of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore; “Boston 24/7,” a year in the life of the mayor’s office; followed by “NYPD 24/7,” a look inside the New York police department spread over 16 months.
Of course “Hopkins 24/7” was a great role model in terms of content but not in terms of ratings. Bring on the nonfiction version of “Sex and the City” in “Hooking Up.”
In a troubling sidelight, the project starts with onscreen graphics highlighting the Internet addresses for online dating services – lavalife.com, craigslist.com, match.com and nerve.com. Viewers would be forgiven for mistaking these for product placements or at least some kind of advertising tie-in.
ABC News contends there is no connection, that the news division is not hooked up with the Internet dating businesses in any way. Specifically, no money changed hands.
“This is a news documentary, so product placements or tie-
ins are completely out of the question,” an ABC News spokesman said. “Nor are any of these sites serving as sponsors of any kind.” Apparently a graphics designer simply used those URLS as “wallpaper basically.”
That’s a fitting way to think about what network news documentaries have become as they chase the glory of so-called reality TV and reality TV spreads into better and worse permutations. “Hooking Up” avoids the more newsworthy aspects of online dating (no pedophile cases, no abductions as a result of Internet connections), but it isn’t exactly mindless, either. These are well-told stories about attractive people engaged in a technologically enabled dating ritual, suffering rejections, making connections, moving on to the next volunteer.
The vicarious thrill offered by a documentary that references “Sex and the City” is bound to be above average for a news hour.
Not bad for wallpaper.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
