Jonathan Storm: City gals compete for the farmer

Hi-ho, the derry-o, the farmer takes a wife.

What the heck is the derry-o, anyway?

Such random thoughts scurry across your mind as it empties while you watch the latest lamebrained, pick-your-true-love, phony reality show on CW57, starting tonight at 9.

"Why is the show called

Farmer Wants a Wife

, rather than

The Farmer Wants a Wife

?" you wonder. It's obvious why it's not

Farmer Takes a Wife

, as in "The Farmer in the Dell."

The world's No. 1 hayseed hick wouldn't take any of the 10 noodle-heads offered up on this show, and this TV farmer, named Matt Neustadt, is far from a hick, with a bachelor's degree, a soul patch under his lip, and a $50 haircut (including a touch of product to keep his topknot in place).

Matt, who was discovered after applying to be on

The Bachelor

four years ago, shows up shirtless driving his tractor and displaying his amazing pecs. "His abs are better than mine," trills one of the would-be wives, all in their 20s, and that is notable since almost all the women have been selected more for their bodacious bods than their agricultural acumen.

That's kind of the point of the show, if it has any point at all. These urban girls will goof up the show's barnyard challenges, hilarity will ensue, and the farmer will send them back to the big city, one by one, until only his true love, the one who can really handle a hoe, remains.

In the meantime, the contestants will have to handle one another, all sleeping in the same big room and trying to figure how they can stay down on the farm without scratching one another's eyes out.

In tonight's episode, Stephanie from L.A. has more immediate concerns for her vision. The challenge is to catch chickens, and the gal with the most will win immunity at Tribal Council - no, that's a different show, among the 806 from which

Farmer

has "borrowed." Anyway, the farmer can't banish the chick with the most chickens, even if he really, really, really hates the cut of her designer sunglasses.

Stephanie's not so good at chicken-catching. "I'm afraid of them, like, pecking my eyes out," she cries.

But she's better than Josie, who seems more suited for a hog farm than the 2,000-acre soybean and grain spread in Missouri that's been in the farmer's family for three generations.

Josie chooses not to participate in the chicken challenge, declaring it, unlike everything else on the show, apparently, "low-class." She should know, coming from Laguna Niguel, Calif., where all the Astors and Vanderbilts live, and the classy country-club wives spend their days at the spa and their nights picking off each other's husbands.

Ashley, who lists her interests, from A to Z, as "shoe shopping," has gone to the country because she thinks city guys are shady.

Brooke, 23, and Lisa, 21, both reveal they are virgins. Maybe they're on the farm to pick up some pointers from the cows and horses and whatever other animals get it going in the barnyard.

Stephanie says she's there "because I'm happy being young and enjoying life for now and figuring out myself." Sounds like her days are numbered.

Viewers should figure out pretty quickly that manure is the main ingredient here, and though it might help the corn crop grow high, it's unlikely to do much to boost ratings at the struggling CW network.

Television Review

Farmer Wants a Wife

9 tonight on CW57