2/7/2008

in

Bravo's new show "The Millionaire Matchmaker" is a match made in heaven.

Susie Kopecky

Move over, bachelor. It's time to get married. Bravo's new *Millionaire Matchmaker* is full-on entertainment with some serious attitude and a lot of ... heart. Patti Stanger is the founder of Millionaire's Club, an exclusive organization she founded in 2000, the sole purpose of which is to match men up with their true love. Patti meets with wealthy male clients, finds out their interests and tastes, and searches within her database and networks to find women who she believes will make a good match with the men. In addition to setting people up on basically blind date meetings, Patti's work and the dates are now ready for public viewing. The new and rather revolutionary aspect of the show is that Patti wants the couples to stay together, making her clients agree to certain caveats. The biggest one so far? No physical intimacy until the man and woman are in a committed relationship. Patti can be harsh on both her male clients (calling one man on his childish player attitude, criticizing another's wardrobe) and female clients (calling one's hair like brillo and admonishing another for not getting extensions), and yet at the end of the day, it comes through that this woman wants her clients to find love. Each show centers on two male millionaires, who go to a mixer and basically speed date a number of women whom Patti invites to the exclusive gathering. Afterwards, each man selects one of the women with whom to go on a date, soon after. Generally, at the end of the show, one couple succeeds and the other -- not so much. Dating is not easy, but Patti's using her third generation matchmaker skills to try to pair up rich men with (mainly) working women who are serious about marriage. Much more dignified than some other reality programming, *The Millionaire Matchmaker* is reality entertainment with quality and heart.