8/3/2009

in

Reality veteran Megan Hauserman's new show debuts on VH1.

Sarah Folmar

VH1 has turned its channel from a music video spectrum to a reality junkie's dream. While some shows, such as "Brook Knows Best" and "The T.O. Show," deal with lives of celebrities, others seem to be a frightening madhouse of unique television personalities. Others deal with celebrities looking for love, or their rejects from previous seasons looking for that special someone. One such show premiered on the station last night, and introduced viewers to an even lower level of reality slums.  
  
"Megan Wants a Millionaire" stars Megan Hauserman, a veteran reality TV personality trying to find her soul mate. She wants a good-looking, caring and thoughtful man, as well as a large bank account. Most of the first episode dealt with introducing the contestants, their personal interests and, of course, their net worth.  
  
Hauserman was a Playboy model before entering the realm of bizarre contests to earn money on TV. She was a contestant and later the winner of "Beauty and the Geek," a social experiment that took beautiful women and partnered them with geeky men. After a long season of saying how much she had changed, Hauserman won her money and made more appearances on television. On VH1's second attempt at "Rock of Love" with Bret Michaels, Hauserman was not the girl for the famous rock star and was sent home. If that wasn't enough, she went on to compete in "I Love Money," and did not make it to the final episode. VH1 may have run out of new reality TV wannabes to come to the network, since Hauserman gets a chance to have her own debauchery of a show.  
  
The first episode had 17 men being introduced to Hauserman, and gave a little background on each of the contestants. Most seemed to talk about what they physically look at with a woman, rather than what they look for in a woman. The woman they are trying to win over seemed to talk about the amount of money she looks for in a man, rather than what he has to offer emotionally. I guess the title should have said it all for me, but I somehow wound up watching the entire shallowly formatted episode.  
  
Hauserman expects a lot of gift-giving throughout the season, and the wrong gift could send someone home. At the end of each episode, Hauserman will choose who she wants to keep around, and then send the others home. Almost every dating show has a dramatic elimination ceremony, but this took it to a ridiculous extreme. The reality show pro has a comically large box of credit cards to hand over to the contestants who will continue on through the next episode. At the end, whoever is sent home has his "credit declined," and Hauserman cuts the card in half with a gigantic pair of scissors.  
  
No one can really know for sure if Megan is looking for love, but it is obvious that when she said she wanted to be a trophy wife to a millionaire she wasn't kidding. The men range from their 20s to 50s, have trust funds or are self-made millionaires and have many different body types. At least looks didn't appear to be Hauserman's first thought when it came to her potential suitors, but their bank accounts certainly seemed to make an impression.