Cable for One – Age of Love – Episode 8

Shows

So here we are, the season finale (series? as far as I know it hasn’t been picked up for another season yet, but the ads all referred to it as the season finale) of Age of Love. We started out with seven women, it went down to six, then back up to twelve and one to two women have been eliminated each week. This week Mark made the final elimination and picked the woman he wanted to date.

The editing on the season finale was… different. In some cases, that worked really well, in others not so much. I liked the opening sequence, cutting between Amanda and Jen and having Mark start to tell someone that it’s not going to work out. It gave the episode a more tense opening than if it had simply started with the scene of Amanda and Jen arriving in a limo to meet Mark.

On the other hand, the second time we saw Mark talking with Amanda and Jen, the intercutting between the two women got a little too frantic and started getting silly. When Mark said “I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s going to work out,” the camera flashed back and forth between Amanda and Jen so many times I started laughing before the camera finally revealed who Mark had rejected. I don’t think that was the mood they were going for.

You can tell whoever edited this week’s episode was desperately trying to inject it with more drama and suspense, but compared to previous week’s there really wasn’t a lot of drama to be had, no matter how it was edited. In past weeks the larger number of women not only ensured more conflict. But with only two women left, there really wasn’t the same sense of competition. Instead of having a bunch of people trying to make sure they weren’t the one picked (to go home) you had two women doing their best to make sure that Mark picked them (to date him). You would think that would increase the hostility between Amanda and Jen, but, since they didn’t spend a lot of time together, it really didn’t.

The closest thing we got to open hostility, was in the one on one conversation between Amanda and Jen after they had their one on one dates. Jen did get a little snarky here, more or less stating that Mark would only choose Amanda if he wanted to be the superior person in the relationship (it was couched in the terms of learning vs. teaching, but that was the gist of it).

Apart from that, and one other tense conversation between Jen and Amanda in the limo, this was a rather unexciting episode. We basically just had Amanda and Jen mostly get along with Mark’s family, and then each of the women had a really nice, but rather uneventful, one on one date with Mark, and then Mark made his choice. Unlike in past weeks, there weren’t really any shocking revelations, new relationship developments or displays of anger/bitterness towards the other women. The result was a pleasant, but unexciting, hour of television.

There was a lot of people speculating that Megan would show up this week, having convinced herself to take another flight. The episode description on my satellite’s TV guide supported that; it mentioned that the final three women would be competing for Mark in Australia. Sadly, that description was not accurate and Megan was nowhere to be seen. Her presence may have lead to a few more tense moments this week, and at the very least, would have given the show a little bit more to focus on for the final episode.

As for the choice Mark made, I do think Jen was right that in the end Mark couldn’t get over the age thing. He obviously liked both women, but if Mark is seriously hoping for something that will lead to a long term relationship and possible children, Jen’s not the best choice. She could have a long term relationship with Mark, but kids may not be possible. They never actually said if Jen was still able to have kids or not, but even if she’s able, not that many women in their late 40s actually want to have any more kids. Not to mention, whenever they had family get togethers and the various generations grouped together, Mark would be hanging out with Jen’s son, while Jen hung out with all the older parents/grandparents.

Looking at the potential future viability of a relationship between Mark and Amanda, it’s a tough one to judge. Obviously Amanda got very into Mark very quickly, to the point where people were speculating on whether Amanda’s jealousy (when Mark was dating the other women) would end up sabotaging her own chances. Of course, now that Mark and Amanda are together, he presumably won’t be dating other women, and so that’s less likely to be an issue. Mark does seem to really like Amanda though, and she was the first one he really got close to, way back in the early episodes of the season. Then again, romances formed via reality television don’t exact have a reputation for leading to healthy, long-lasting relationships. It’ll be interesting to see where the two stand by the time the show’s second season roles around (assuming that the show gets picked up again).

All in all, even though Mark did pick the woman who seemed most compatible with him, it was kind of a dull way to end off what had been a much more drama-filled season.