'Flavor of Love 3' lacks taste
By Dani Purcell, Staff Writer
February 19, 2008 | 6 a.m.
With more new ladies and 13 episodes in store, infamous rapper Flavor Flav is on a reality-style quest for love...again.
As Flavor Flav’s assistant Big Rick says, “You got a tough job ahead of you.” Complete with a mansion and 15 ladies at his disposal, the former Public Enemy front man has a task ahead of himself.
“Flavor of Love” second-season reject, Saaphyri, hosted a casting special, which aired Feb. 4, in which she traveled to five major cities across the United States, from D.C. to San Francisco. The most quirky and novel findings included a woman from D.C. unintelligibly shouting about chopping off her goats’ heads and a former hotline operator with an extremely breathy and seductive voice in San Francisco.
Perhaps the most amusing and strangest of statements came from a man in a St. Louis barbershop warning Saaphyri of mystical creatures he calls Dinobots, large women who transform into vending machines.
After the casting special, Saaphyri’s mission was complete, and with the 15 contestants chosen, fans chose an additional five contestants by voting on the official Web site. However, Flavor Flav seemed disappointed in his fans’ taste in women.
“How could y'all do this to me?” he howled. His distaste with the physical appearance of the Internet-chosen contestants was more than evident during the naming ceremony.
Most contestants were named due to their appearance or location. A young lady from Mississippi was named “Grayvee,” because of her Southern heritage and claim she wanted to cook fried chicken for Flav.
Flav also faced the curious situation of naming a set of identical twins. “I gave them a fly name – one of my favorite books was 'Cat in the Hat,' and my favorite characters were Thing One and Thing Two,” he said.
Despite the confused and disgusted expressions on other women’s faces, the twins giggled and seemed appreciative of their special nicknames.
After the naming ceremony, Flav entertained the ladies and promised each a short amount of “alone time.” Although he sometimes had to split the time between sets of women, he spoke with each of the contestants individually.
The instigator and resident drama-starting role had already clearly been established with the first woman Flav named, Shy. Her hot-headed, seemingly bipolar persona and facial structure could easily remind a viewer of an infamous past contestant on both preceding seasons of “Flavor of Love,” Miss Tiffany "New York” Pollard.
“She dippin’ and dappenin’, not knowing what’s happening with my Kool-Aid and my flavors!” Shy said, upon instigating an argument with another contestant, Bee-Ex.
Despite her clashes with Bee-Ex, Shy earnestly communicated her feelings to Flav.
“I want to open my heart to you,” she said, and Flav immediately reciprocated similar interests in Shy, as well. Although Flav connected with a few of the women, some of the other ladies didn’t experience such sparks.
Flav’s meeting with Savanna, an Internet contestant, sparked the most outstanding moment of the first episode. Although Flav was having a discussion with two other contestants, Pee Chee and Savanna approached and requested some time with him.
“A big girl! A bigger girl! This is going to be very interesting,” he said. “Your man ain’t really shallow, and I told each of the girls I was going to spend some one-on-one time with ‘em.”
Although these women interrupted a conversation to speak with Flav, Savanna and Pee Chee had very little to say. This clearly awkward moment was only surpassed by his explanation of, “I felt like a wedgie!”
After Flavor Flav spent some time with each contestant, he made his decisions about them during the elimination ceremony.
Flav eliminated each Internet contestant with the exception of one – Rayna, who was called second. Her earlier unsuccessful attempt to explain the symbolism behind Flav’s clock obviously didn’t hurt Flav’s consideration of her beauty and personality.
Although he initially planned to eliminate six women, Flav chose to keep both Thing One and Thing Two as his final choices in the elimination round. Q-Tee, Shore-Tee, Pee Chee, Savanna and Dymz were eliminated.
Future spoilers show that more extravagant dates, such as skydiving and racy photo shoots, are in store for the rest of the season. However, the decaying concept of “reality” TV in this season of “Flavor of Love” is not original. Similar shells of characters, familiar situations and bleeps are all too common for this dating show, and only those who appreciate the insipid familiarity of reality TV can truly appreciate its candor.
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"Flavor of Love 3" episodes air Mondays at 9 p.m. on VH1. For more information, visit Vh1's Web site