This episode “held no cut cards”, as we like to say in the DMV. We have “conflict" straight out the gate. Our bachelor, Shawn, is 32, and Phoenix, 33, and Jen, 29, think Shawn should be with an “older” woman, someone closer to his age, instead of one of the house’s gaggle of early twenty-somethings. Um, they’re right, but Mercedes, 22, doesn’t agree and is offended.
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WATCH NOW: WE TV'S "MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN" 0101
I swore up and down I wasn’t taking on any new TV shows this season. Between “Empire”, “Being Mary Jane”, “Scandal” and the return of “Walking Dead” threatening to take over my winter, there was just no room to tap into pop culture and still be productive. But I’m making one more exception this season for WE Tv’s "Match Made in Heaven” (Wednesdays, 8PM, WE Tv), which features “America’s first Black bachelor” (no Flavor Flav and Ray J don’t count.)
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MEET SHAWN BULLARD, THE FIRST (SORTA) BLACK BACHELOR
Maybe you remember this: A couple of years ago, The Bachelor—ABC’s megahit reality show featuring (nonblack) men, with access to an inordinate number of roses, who were looking for love while the cameras rolled on—was accused of being racist. In 19 seasons of the show, there had never been a black bachelor. There was even a lawsuit in 2012 over it. Despite the outcry, ABC never stepped up to the plate.
But WeTV did. Enter Match Made in Heaven, a new reality show featuring Shawn Bullard, a 34-year-old, once-engaged but never-married, real estate developer, who the network is billing as “America’s First Black Bachelor.” (Are we not counting Flavor Flav?)
Read MoreSORORITY SISTERS' APRIL MCRAE SPEAKS ABOUT VH1'S CONTROVERSIAL TV SHOW
VH1’s Sorority Sisters, the network’s latest ensemble cast of African-American women, has been embattled in controversy since a trailer for the show leaked in June. That trailer inspired a petition to keep it from airing, which was signed by thousands. Despite the backlash before the show even began, Sorority Sisters debuted in December to an audience of 1.3 million and was the No. 1 nonsports cable program in the time period among women 18-49, according to VH1.
Twitter had a collective meltdown over the show and advertisers, such as Coca-Cola, Hallmark, State Farm and the NBA, bailed left and right. New calls for boycotts have emerged. Yet, weeks later, Sorority Sisters still exists and VH1 chose to address the controversy surrounding the show on-air in an unprecedented “impromptu sit-down” with the cast on Monday night.
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