HOLLYWOOD — "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance" (8 p.m., Ch. 13) carries Fox's mean-spirited "reality show" genre to the next level. No longer is it just about what someone will do to win a million dollars, it's now about what someone will do to her family to win a million dollars.
I didn't say it was the next level up.
Essential, "Fiance" is a big, cruel joke that's played for laughs. Ha, ha.
The producers of those oh-so-classy shows "Joe Millionaire" and "Temptation Island" have cooked up the cruel joke by lying to lots of people. First-grade teacher Randi Coy (who, of course, is gorgeous) is told that she's being recruited for a dating show. But then she's offered a million bucks if she will try to convince her family she's going to marry the guy she just met on that dating show and get them to agree to attend the wedding.
She's told that the producers have chosen another contestant as her fake fiance. And he turns out to be big, fat and obnoxious.
But the producers are lying to Coy, too. He's Steven Bailey, an actor hired to be as unbearable as possible. And his relatives are actors, too.
Coy said she has "some resentment" over having been tricked, but don't feel real sorry for her. She has no guilt over playing this incredibly cruel joke on her family in order to get herself on TV and win a million bucks.
"I thought, 'This is going to be fun.' It was an ultimate practical joke. And it gets tricky, but they're a resilient family," Coy said.
Good thing, because clips from episodes toward the end of the show's six-week run show Coy's family clearly upset — even traumatized — by the belief that their loved one was about to ruin her life.
"Yeah, well, we put them through a lot," Bailey said.
And yet Coy insisted, "I don't know if it's mean. . . . I don't think it was necessarily cruel. It was going to end, and that was my thing. It was two weeks."
When it was pointed out that it was two weeks of heartache for her parents and siblings, Coy empathetically agreed. "Right," she said.
But executive producer Chris Cowan assured critics, "It wasn't necessarily all heartache.
"Oh, I think it's traumatic, absolutely," said Cowan, who called it "hyper-drama" and refused to admit it was sort of a crummy thing to do to these people.
"No, I don't think it's crummy at all," Cowan said.
Coy couldn't quite answer when asked if she had any ethical qualms about participating in a huge, cruel lie when she's supposed to be a role model for her students.
"Yes and no," she said. "Once again, it was supposed to be fun. . . . I didn't look at it as harming my family."
Which no doubt made it easier for her to sleep at night.
"We're a very close family, so hopefully in the end we'll be OK," said Coy, "but this is quite a whirlwind that we went through."
But she didn't have much to say about how her family took it when the joke was revealed, except that they're still on speaking terms.
"I speak to my family," she said, refusing to elaborate further.
Even if the clips shown to critics exaggerated the situation and the heartache — which wouldn't be the first time that has happened — the fact is that the producers and Fox think that that heartache and trauma is entertaining. So it's the same old mean-spirited manipulation that's just sunk to a new level.
MEAN 'IDOL': The third round of "American Idol" (7 p.m., Ch. 13) is about to get under way — which means, of course, that we're back to the fun part. The early episodes with all the really bad singers. You know, before they weed out all the really bad ones and get to the boring finalists.
And they certainly don't lack for bad singers. Just ask judge Simon Cowell.
"A million people could apply for this show, and you're still only going to find two good people," he said. "And that is a horrible statistic."
But it makes for entertaining TV.
"I mean, I wouldn't watch the show unless there were loads of bad people because that's what I like watching," Cowell said.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com