Street Match

The premise of Street Match — that two complete strangers are brought together and followed around before, during, and after their first date — carries with it every danger of collapsing in a fit of MTV-influenced, Real World-ish cutes. And yet, so help me, the first show I've seen of this vervy, stylish summer series has me hooked. Daytime soap star Ricky Paull Goldin (Another World) is the host, and he's personable enough — a graduate of the Richard Lewis school of coifs with a friendly pesterer attitude borrowed from Dan Cortese — but he's not the star of the show. Nor, for that matter, are the game, telegenic singles who agree to go along with this good-as-any method of meeting (there are two dates per episode, along with a less-satisfying filler portfolio of people describing their worst date, their most exotic setting for sex, etc.). Nope, the star of this hipped-up Dating Gameis the look and pace of the thing, under the direction of series creator Gabe Sachs and editor Eric creator Gabe Sachs and editor Eric Carlson, who use the full arsenal of MTV-generation video tricks to keep things moving with charm. I'm sure there's an unseemly back room over at Gabe's place filled with the outtakes that will ruin my belief in the spontaneity of the human soul. But on a clammy summer's night, one could do worse than watch a couple of appealing strangers attempt to overcome the clammy human condition of loneliness. B+