Tonight, in the third episode of Age of Love, NBC’s new Reality TV show, Mark Philippoussis, 30, will continue his quest for romance as he dates two different groups of women. The first group, Cougars, which are our “older women” with ages ranging from 39 to 48. The second group of women, Kittens, which we met last week are our younger women and range in age from 21 to 27 years old. With Mark caught somewhere in between it’ll be an interesting season to see who he picks and if he can answer, “Does age matter?”

The show begins with the two groups facing off and complaining about the other. The Cougars feel he couldn’t be their guy if he’d be interested in someone so young. The Kittens just do more digging into the Cougars because they’re “old”. Well enough of that, let’s jump straight into the game. Mark has to select one lady from each group for a semi-individual date. Mark quickly selects and sends a message to Kelli from the Cougars and Amanda from the Kittens. I’m not too surprised from either selection as Mark has clearly taken a liking to Amanda early on. Both ladies think they are getting their own date, but really Mark will have to split his hour long date between the two tables. This plays out really funny and reminds me of Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire as he runs back and forth in the restaurant trying to keep two dinner dates going at the same time.

Before we find out how the date hour ends, and this is important because where ever Mark is sitting at the end of the hour will lead to a private dessert reward with that lady, we take a look back at the ladies not on the date. Host Mark reveals that the remaining ladies will pick a special date for the opposite group of ladies. Oh boy. Okay, quick jump back to the date. The hour is counting down and Kelli smartly keeps talking just to keep Mark at her table when the hour counts down to zero. Mark is clearly flustered as he was trying to get away from Kelli and back to Amanda’s table. Despite his dessert date with Kelli Mark walks Amanda back to her limo and gives her a kiss. We get lots of big smiles from Amanda back in the interview room as she describes how happy the kiss made her. Back at the dessert table Kelli and Mark finish off their meal together, but with little excitement involved on Mark’s part.

So what did the Cougars pick for the Mark and Kittens date? Something closer to their own age, a little kid’s birthday part. This went pretty well for all of them, except Mary who almost started crying after Mark walked away from her while she was in mid-sentence. I’m not a big Mary fan, so I thought this was pretty funny. On the ride back Mark gets to pick one of the Kittens to ride separately and so he chooses Adelaide. Tessa expresses her disappoint, but I’m not surprised as Mark really appears more of a brunette preferring guy. When Mark brings Adelaide back to the suite he gives her a kiss on the lips. So much for his comment earlier about not being one to kiss a girl and turn around to kiss another.

Now it’s time for the Kittens’ hand selected date for Mark and Cougars. This selection wasn’t so smart though. Mark and the Cougars end up at the pool with geriatric water exercises. The exercising finishes quickly and Mark gets to spend the rest of the time playing with the bikini-clad Cougars. He explains how the Cougars have bodies that would “piss off” the Kittens. They certainly surprised and impressed me. Again we hear how Mark feels a different, lighter, and happier mood with the Cougars than with the Kittens. It really shows on the group dates as the Cougars treat each other as friends, not competition as the Kittens do. The group date ends with Mark asking Maria to join him for the ride back to his suite. Here Mark and Maria spend some private time together talking on the couch and Mark’s body language is anything but encouraging to Maria. Their time ends with a kiss on the check from Mark. Nothing too exciting there.

The time for elimination has arrived and tonight Mark will send home two more ladies, one from each group. As the ladies prepare for this round Maria starts mouthing off about how she doesn’t feel the potential for a match and is ready to walk off the show. Hmm, that’s a bold claim. I’ll be impressed and surprised if she does that. On the other floor the Kittens are all quite nervous, well not Adelaide, she’s very confident that she’s completely safe tonight. I think she’s right, but let’s see. The elimination begins the kittens each come down until it’s just Adelaide and Mary. Mark asks Adelaide to step down and he tells her that he feels a kiss can tell a lot. He goes on to explain that when they kissed after the limo ride he didn’t feel anything, and so he informs her that their dating is over. What?! Wow, I’m completely surprised by it. I can’t believe he decided to keep Mary over Adelaide. Wow.

So now it’s on to the Cougars. Mark expresses his growing attraction to Maria who strongly returns to compliments. Now we’re down to our big threat of the night. Mark asks Maria to step down and he asks her to stay. Maria isn’t so quick to respond and instead stammers in front of him for several moments before declaring she’s nervous about staying. She appears to quickly back track and begins the big smile and laughing with Mark and says that she’ll stay if he’ll try to open up more. Jayanna is a sure stay, no surprise there for me at all. So that leaves behind just Kelli and Lynn, one of which will go home. Mark asks Kelli to step down and says he’d really like for her to stay, leaving Lynn to be sent home. I’m not terribly surprised by Lynn’s elimination because they hadn’t had a lot of time together, but considering how his date went with Kelli I’m a little surprised that she didn’t go home instead.

Now that elimination is over for the night there is one more tidbit for our ladies. Host Mark informs the Kittens that they have 15 minutes to clear out of the 20th floor and head to join the Cougars on the 40th floor. Yikes! Jayanna shows her feisty side with some flavorful phrases that leave little to the imagination on how she feels about this merger. Well this should be a fun episode next week!

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