Picks and Pans Review: 'For Love or Money'

NBC (Mondays, 9 p.m. ET)

These days a creative genius in television is somebody who can design a new reality show that duplicates a previous hit in all but one or two noteworthy details.

Just as Joe Millionaire gave The Bachelor a twist, the shamelessly derivative For Love or Money takes the same matchmaking format and adds two dollops of deception. The June 2 debut of the six-episode series introduces 15 young women vying for the affection of Dallas lawyer Rob Campos, a tall, dark and handsome type in the mold of Joe‘s Evan Marriott.

What Rob doesn’t know is that the woman who wins his heart qualifies for a $1 million prize; what the competitors don’t realize is that the one Rob chooses will be forced to ditch him if she wants to keep the dough.

Fans of the genre undoubtedly will want to see how this entry turns out. But the padded two-hour premiere will have you wishing you could fast-forward to the finale. The growing cattiness of the beautiful contestants, the kid-in-a-candy-store comments of the dazzled bachelor–America knows the drill only too well.

BOTTOM LINE: Please, just skip to the payoff