Miss Priss meets Steve the Beast

By MICHELE HEWITSON

He's a big fat obnoxious bloke who burps and drinks and, eek, has hair on his back.

She's a little blonde princess from Arizona who teaches kids and is described as "wholesome".

Wholesome, on American reality TV, means does not drink, does not burp and, no doubt, has been thoroughly waxed, all over.

My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance (TV3, tonight, 8.30) is an update of Beauty and the Beast although it is unlikely to have a happy ending, because even those reality TV dating shows which have happy endings usually end up unhappily on the covers of the women's mags mere months after the proposal.

The twist with this one is that the whole thing is a big fat obnoxious con.

Little princess Randi has to trick her family and friends into believing she has fallen in love with Steve the Beast, and that she is going to marry him. If she can get her family to attend the wedding and get up the altar before anyone stands up to object to this match, she gets a load of dosh.

What Randi doesn't know is that Steve is an actor, that Steve's family is made up of actors and that he's not actually falling in love with her, he's poking the borax, big time.

How she couldn't have figured this out is beyond belief but then she is the girl who was selected for this show without being told what show she was going on.

Right, so she's a moron. Randi is also a great conversationalist. She says "OHMYGOD" a lot. She is also something of an actor. Unfortunately her repertoire of faces consist of face-like-a-cat's-bum and face-which-would-curdle-milk.

She says of Steve, "He doesn't have the etiquette of somebody I usually hang out with." And "If I was his teacher I would send Steve to the principal's office."

Miss Priss wears a pale pink tracksuit, with lipstick, to breakfast. She eats fruit and healthy things while Steve shovels sausage and steak.

When they go to meet the wedding planners Steve sicks up the tuna sushi finger food sample on the lawn. Steve gets drunk and splashes in the hot tub. Randi stays in her room bawling and wishing she'd thought to pack her waterproof mascara.

She sneers at Steve's drinking, and reprimands him:"If someone really knew me they would know that you wouldn't call me Sugar Lips."

That's for sure.

Steve pretends to reassure Randi that they're both in this together, that he really doesn't fancy her: "I like Asian chicks," he says. "Oh good," says Randi.

The great flaw in all of this - quite apart from the fact that once you've got used to Steve being gross and Randi doing her cat's bum face - is that it's all very dull and only a moron would believe that these two have fallen in love.

It could have something to do with the fact that Randi's lip curls every time Steve opens his mouth, that Randi's body language is about as subtle as Steve's acting.

But then again, given that only a moron would agree to appear on a show when they have no idea what said show is going to be about, then perhaps the moron's family will turn out to be moronic enough to be fooled by the whole thing, too.