"I Love Money" is back...WTF?!?

After the dramz that happened with alleged I Love Money 3 winner Ryan The Murderer, VH1 pulled the franchise for what we all thought was going to be forever. Thankfully, this turned out not to be the case...although the network is not very proud of it.

I Love Money 4 quietly premiered on Thursday, September 16th on VH1 at 11pm Eastern. No quality show ever has a run time that late at night. I knew nothing about this and sadly missed the premiere. No promos ran, and VH1 does not even have a page for the show on their website, making I Love Money the shameful bastard child of the network. The show was taped over a year ago around the same time as the never-to-be-seen IL$3, but has been re-edited to focus more on the competition than the relationships between cast mates (soooo...no sex? how?). An official message on the VH1 message board states that the show has been revised slightly "to fit better with our current programming". So I guess this all means that VH1 realised how much of a hot mess they were and decided that they needed to stop putting crazies and murderers on their reality shows. But we loved VH1 as a hot mess!

Sadly it looks like this show is going to fail, but I think VH1 wants it that way. The random timeslot of the show and minimal replays mean that barely anyone will end up seeing it. Episodes are also not posted on the internet like with other VH1 shows, which means in today's net-obsessed world they'll lose a large viewership. Focusing on the game and not personal stories will also probably make the show boring, so those who do find a chance to watch will be less likely to become repeat viewers.

I understand the decision to pull Megan Wants a Millionaire mid-season and not air IL$3 (although it tore two pieces out of my little heart!), but why mess with IL$4 when its cast doesn't include any current felons? Newsflash, no one wants to watch Fantasia for Real! We want trashy Z-listers rolling around in mud and hooking up with multiple people! I Love Money 4 includes several tools from Daisy of Love, some walking STDs from Rock of Love Bus, and some of the more "wholesome" cast members of Megan Wants a Millionaire. The trailer looks decent, but I suspect that a lot of great programming was probably left on the cutting room floor in light of this situation.