Remember the good old days when you had to wait for your wife to get syphilis before you were sure she had been with another man?
With the advent of progressive thinking and ABC's new show "Wife Swap," you can actually avoid the itching and anticipation by sending your wife into another man's house. Plus you get to watch it all on TV afterward. That's hot.
The show, which airs Saturdays at 9 p.m., is about as impressive as the bond of the couples that enter in- to it. Essentially, two families switch wives for a week in order to definitively answer the question, "Is your neighbor's wife actually nicer than yours, or does it just seem that way?"
It's also done to show your wife - or mother if you're the child - that other families out there are just as bad as yours, if not worse, and you should be thankful for the just-above tolerable situation at home.
The two lucky big-and-tall swingers this past week, Veronica and Diane, were whisked away at the beginning of the show to their new families. They either swam, as Diane did by mustering the entire family together for a water fight and a doughnut-eating contest, or sank, as Veronica did by going red with embarrassment at meeting the family and hiding in the children's room. This was pretty much the course of the show.
At its end, the family who had the fun-loving Diane had this to say:
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Husband: "The thing I will miss most, besides her personality, is the conversation. It warmed me."
Kids: "She isn't like mom. She's nice. I'm so sad," followed by a bucket or two of tears. Veronica's family, on the other hand, gave a cordial wave and sigh.
At the show's finale, $50,000 is given to each family for its prostitution - er, I mean heartache fees - and the surrogate spouses decide how their new, adopted family will use it. While Veronica pragmatically decides Diane's family needed a new bathroom and a trip to Florida to see relatives, Diane gave Veronica's family an SUV, swimming pool, flat-screen TV, $1,000 shopping spree and $2,500 for a college fund.
After reading this, Veronica sat in silence, radiating fury, then sprayed at her husband, "Every time I see that pool, I'll never get over it. I have to call her. This ain't right."
Ultimately the awkwardness is entertaining, but the show tries too often to inject values at inappropriate moments. It's like a Jack Black film that's supposed to be easily funny and about dog poo or fat people and then ends up having a real moral that ruins the last quarter of the film.
My recommendation: See it. But when the credits ask, "Is your friend ready to trade spouses?" Don't answer.
