Saturday

Saturday

Most of us have had to work retail at some point. We were desperate for extra cash, we wanted a store discount, or we needed a job. But after dealing with annoying customers and folding and re-folding clothes until your hands hurt, most of us vowed never to be a sales associate again—at least, I did. So, I can’t for the life of me figure out why TV producers think we would want to watch people working at a boutique.

The New York Times’ Modern Love column is something many simply adore—and others love to hate. Each week, readers learn intimate details about someone else’s relationship, and sometimes learn lessons about human nature, relationships, and love. The column has helped several writers launch their careers by way of book deals; now it may help The New York Times’ wallet. Former “Sex and the City” writer Jenny Bicks is working on a pilot script for a TV show based on Modern Love—not a specific column, the whole shebang.

The show will revolve around a fictionalized male editor’s life, which includes a messy divorce, a rocky relationship with a teenage daughter, and a reentry into the dating scene. Stories and people from the newspaper column will be woven into the show’s storylines. Even though BermanBraun optioned the rights to the column from The Times last year, Bicks isn’t sure whether she’ll be able to set the series at the paper, or if it will become a fictional news organization.

Meanwhile, the real editor of Modern Love, Daniel Jones, lives in Massachusetts with his family. No word on how he feels about having his life made into a TV show. [Variety]

A poster for the “Gossip Girl”-spinoff “Valley Girls” has been released, and it doesn’t make us at all excited for the show. Instead, it reinforces the poor casting of Brittany Snow as the young Lily van der Woodsen. [Videogum]

HBO and former “Daily Show”/“Colbert Report” executive producer Ben Karlin and “NYPD Blue” writer/producer Theresa Rebeck are developing a show that will take place in a small liberal arts college in the Northeast with “a onetime famous author who, after a tumultuous period as a feminist It Girl, is now a professor” as the main character. The role will likely be played by Tony winner Julie White (“NYPD Blue,” “Monsters Vs. Aliens,” “Transformers”). The series, “Women’s Studies,” is in development at this point, so no air date has been set as of yet, but we’re looking forward to seeing what they do with the premise. Watching a crazy, washed-up feminist trying to feel important in Vermont sounds right up our alley. [Reuters via Salon]

Over at Nerve.com, Steve Almond takes on VH1’s “Rock of Love” and asserts the latest installment in the reality TV series, “Rock of Love Bus,” is, basically, pornography. According to Almond, the show is “eerily like a porn film,” absent, he says, feeling or intimacy, while everyone stands around groping and tonguing each other, nevertheless, and totally misogynist. But is “Rock of Love” misogynist—or reality?

Finally, TV producers realize there’s more to love than just appearance. Fox and Mike Fleiss, producer of ABC’s “The Bachelor,” are developing a dating competition show that casts “average-looking” people, including overweight competitors. The series, titled “More to Love,” will provide an alternative to the other dating competition shows that feature size-two women and handsome, buff bachelors. “For six years it’s been skinny-minis and good-looking bachelors, and that’s not what the dating world looks like,” said Mike Darnell, Fox president of alternative entertainment. “Why don’t real women—the women who watch these shows, for the most part—have a chance to find love too?” The popularity of NBC’s “Big Love” has proven that audiences will watch people who represent the makeup of society, but aren’t considered highly attractive. The show will follow the format of “The Bachelor,” but unlike “Beauty and the Geek” and “Average Joe,” the less-than-handsome guy won’t be paired with model-esque women. Producers describe the bachelor as a “Kevin James-type.” “More to Love” is casting, but no air date has been set, yet. Would you tune in every week to watch people who are as good-looking as you? [Reuters]

“The Millionarie Matchmaker” is on tonight at 10 p.m. EST on Bravo, and we’ve got a clip from the show. It’s pretty easy to believe that men go into the dating game with unrealistic expectations about who they want to get with. In real life, and on this show, guys lust after actresses and models. For the most part, women seem to be more realistic about potential parters’ looks, but we can’t completely generalize on that point because there are exceptions. Case in point: the female millionaire (millionairess?) on tonight’s episode. This lady is seriously delusional and doesn’t seem like a nice person. Plus, she makes fun of our beloved Patti Stanger’s bangs! Will Patti take her on as a client? We hope not—she doesn’t deserve help with her love life. After the jump, the hideous face this superficial woman makes while saying she wouldn’t want to wake up next to a guy who has any sort of belly.

“The Real Housewives of Orange County” star Gretchen Rossi will become a professional gold digger if she takes sugar daddy matchmaking site UpscaleDaddy.com up on its offer to become their celebrity spokeswoman. The site claims it “aims to bring together beautiful women and successful wealthy men for a mutually rewarding relationship.” Sounds like Rossi, who spent most of her first season on the show spending her dying fiance’s money, will be perfect for the position. Kevin Blatt, the man behind the site, who claims credit for turning Paris Hilton’s sex tape into an international phenomenon, says Rossi is the perfect candidate because she “has a thing for older men taking care of her.” If she accepts the job, she’ll get $100,000, a “Condo in Spain valued at $500,000.00 and a brand new $90,000.00 Mercedes.” Not so fast, though, Gretchen. There’s just one catch. First, she has to take a polygraph test to prove that she was “actually in love with Jeff and faithful to him” during the TV show’s taping. Sounds like Gretchen may well be SOL.

The final season of “The L Word” is almost over, tear! This Sunday, the last episode of the groundbreaking show will air. Ilene Chaiken, the creator of the Showtime hit, lamented that she thought there would be more gayelle hours of TV power on the air before hers came to an end.  While LOGO has done a great job of identifying what we girls want to see—like the prison drama, “Bad Girls,” and"Curl Girls,” about lesbian surfers—what about the primetime networks?! We’ve taken it upon ourselves to pitch some shows we’d totally watch. Network execs, call us!

Jay McCarroll, the fashion designer who won the first season of “Project Runway,” is the focus of a new documentary that arrives just in time for New York Fashion Week: “Eleven Minutes.” Why 11 minutes? That’s how long his first fashion show will last. The cameras follow McCarroll behind the scenes as he works to live up to the expectations that reality TV bestowed upon him and at the same time expose the insanity that is the fashion industry, of which McCarroll says: “It is the dumbest industry.” Dumb or not, the doc, the cast of which includes the delightful Kelly Cutrone, is a mostly hilarious, sometimes moving look at what it takes to make it—without compromising yourself. The bigger question, of course, is whether McCarroll or any of his reality TV show peers will be able to turn their 15 minutes of fame as reality stars into stars in the real world.

TLC is branching out from its typical fare (“Jon & Kate Plus 8,” “17 Kids and Counting,” “Trading Spaces,” etc.) with a show that’s still family oriented, but a little more on the sexy side. With “Mother Knows Sex,” the channel will follow Patty Brisben, a Midwestern housewife, churchgoer, and mother of four, as she and her family run their business. Brisben and Co. have made millions from Pure Romance, a company that sells sex toys at Tupperware party-like gatherings at people’s homes. How does a family that works together in the sex industry get along? What is it like to discuss dildos with your mother? We’ll find out when “Mother Knows Sex” debuts Feb. 1 at 10pm EST. [AP]

Is “Rock of Love: Charm School” winner Brandi M., a.k.a. Brandi Mahon, dating a pornographer? After scoring $100,000 on the second season of VH1’s “Charm School,” hosted by Sharon Osbourne, Brandi’s porn star past was exposed. Now, it appears the charm school grad may be slipping back into the X-rated business by dating Jason Green, the co-owner of Paradise Visuals, an adult production company based in Las Vegas, where Mahon lives.

Once upon a time, Carrie Bradshaw was a role model for women across America, and “Sex and the City” promised a Manolos and men-filled life. Even after the show was canceled, it lived on in reruns, and the movie version brought lady viewers back in droves. Now, though, the recession promises to finally put to bed women’s “Sex and the City” pipe dreams, or so says Vanity Fair, when one male writer takes a ride on the “SATC” bus tour. From a sad visit to the sex shop where Charlotte bought her Rabbit vibrator to the Magnolia Bakery cupcake-eating gaggle of female tourists who ragingly recount every single episode, some women are still desperately trying to hold on to “Sex and the City” escapism, instead of sinking into the reality of the great 21st century depression. By the end of the tour of this female fantasyland that never really existed: “We all realize what an obsessively ridiculous, embarrassing, empty, and needy exercise this has been.” Us, too. [Vanity Fair]

“Sean recorded private webcam conversations with his girlfriend and put them on his blog. When she finds out, things go from bad to worse.” I’m not going to spoil “Dumped” by saying too much about it, but suffice to say it’s about a guy who gets dumped, and it has a surprising twist. Thanks to Kasia at Current for sending it.