If you are a fan of Come Dine With Me, then you are probably not going to be a fan of Come Date With Me. I mean it still involves food, some guests coming round to your house and those all-important score cards but it feels like it has been mashed up with ITV’s Take Me Out.
The premise is essentially a dating show but to make it less in your face it takes place in the comfy confines of Come Dine With Me. But this means the rules are quite confusing, yet really mean nothing. So the week begins with four men and one lucky lady (I say lucky, I more likely mean unfortunate). To start off with she cooks for them but come the end of the evening she has to choose which man has not impressed so far so will not continue with them on their journey of love. I mean sure it is embarrassing but the guy is forgotten about in a matter of minutes.
So now that the three men are head over heels in love with this week’s lady (I say in love, I mean in lust and that is being polite) they get a chance to impress her. And it is not only with dinner, which the other two guys get to sit in on, but also a date, which they are alone on. These are all clichéd dates such as a spa day or a romantic picnic where the fellas try to get a kiss or get their date naked.
Then in the evening they cook – which is the only segment similar to Come Dine With Me but it doesn’t really. I mean they cook and that is it. And only the lady courting the three men gets to score; a score out of ten for the date and a score out of ten for the meal.
At the end of the week whoever has the most out of twenty she gets to spend the rest of her life with (I say spend the rest of her life with, I mean spend one awkward date with). Except it is all rendered pointless because she can change her scores at the end of the week.
However pointless it all sounds, it is strangely enjoyable all because of Dave Lamb. Whenever a guy says something desperate and cringe-worthy then good ol’ Dave Lamb is there to point fun at and generally make them look like a fool. This is the sole thing that makes it different to other dating shows, there is no pretence that this will lead to romance.
Overall though the thing I found quite disappointing about it was everyone was too similar. On its parent show they will have a vegetarian or someone who won’t drink alcohol to cause some tension within the group. Whereas everyone on this show has the same thing in mind and they will only cause trouble by making fun of each other’s chat up lines.
TV Talk 