Reality TV goes romantic

NEW YORK -- Less than a week after Valentine's Day, you will learn the funny valentines Evan and Trista chose.\nMonday's "Joe Millionaire" (8 p.m. EST, Fox) will find Evan Marriott deciding between Zora, the substitute teacher, and Sarah, a former bondage-video queen the show identifies as "Asst. to Mortgage Broker." They are the finalists from a field of 20 lovelies who began vying for Evan's heart and the $50 million they were told would come with it.\nThen on Wednesday's "The Bachelorette" (8 p.m., ABC), Trista Rehn will give her heart (or, anyway, her final rose) to firefighter Ryan or financier Charlie, the remaining pair from what were once 25 hunky swains.\nOn each finale, the Chosen One will be revealed. But exactly what Evan or Trista is proposing may remain far less certain. Marriage? Engagement? To "be with" that someone (whatever "be with" might mean)? On "The Bachelorette," the obligatory wording is, "Will you accept this rose?" Just see how far that gets you in the real world.\nBut this, of course, is fantasy land. Here, Trista, Evan and those who pursued them get to act out the audience's fantasies, which conveniently include nonbinding terms: Till death, or the next commercial break, do us part.\nJust recall banker Aaron Buerge, who, on ABC's "The Bachelor" last fall, told schoolteacher Helene Eksterowicz, "I'm really looking forward to sharing my life with you."\nThat was then. Now their makeshift engagement is apparently kaput. But you can learn more next week on an ABC special, "The Bachelor: Aaron and Helene Tell All" -- more evidence that the highest ambition of people who go on TV isn't likely to be love or marriage, but being on more TV.\nWithin the glut of staged-but-unscripted TV fare, the spin-the-bottle category is hot. And reliable. Whether a syndicated dating show or a serial bacchanal like Fox's "Temptation Island," the idea is the same: Some participants get lucky (as in, you know, wink-wink, lucky) and some get hurt (as in, not lucky).\nBut there's something distinctive about "Joe Millionaire" and "The Bachelorette." While sexual conquest is at the crux of both shows, each cloaks potential bawdiness in the trappings of romance.\nEvan, though a red-blooded male of 28 with a harem in arm's reach, has remained a gentleman, a model of propriety, whether squiring his date du jour on a bicycle ride through the French countryside or jetting her to Cannes.\nThe show even frames his moneyed masquerade as a romantic ploy, a way to test his chosen mate's pure-heartedness on learning he is actually a $19,000-per-year construction worker, not a stinking-rich heir. Thus the moment of truth: Has she been after Evan for his nonexistent fortune, or for what he really is -- broke, handsome and a liar?