What Females Want and Males Will Do

I always chuckle at reality dating shows. Well, I chuckle and then I roll my eyes and most likely change the channel.

I just can’t wrap my head around why, on The Bachelor for instance, women would consent to be part of a televised harem for a chance at love with a dude they’ve never met. 

Same goes for the more sordid exploits on Rock of Love, Flavor of Love and A Shot at Love.

The women – and they’re most often women – tart themselves up with heavy makeup, push-up bras, and acres of hair extensions and then expect the guy to laud them for being the most natural and genuine girl there.

And then there are the challenges to prove they’re worthy mates – I seem to recall the contestants on A Shot at Love proving their devotion by eating bulls’ penises and testicles. Ugh. And, ewwwwwww!

Turns out, it’s part of nature’s mating scheme, and the these reality TV candidates are just acting out ploys akin to that of the mandrill baboon or arctic puffin. Which is why PBS’s two-part miniseries about sexual selection intrigues me so much.

Dubbed What Females Want and Males Will Do, it incorporates advanced technology and risky field study to observe animals’ mating rituals.

For example, some spiders dance for their mates like they’re in an arachnid-friendly nightclub, while some monkeys show off their drumming skills (paging Keith Moon!), and female gelada baboons woo their partners with hot, red chest patches.

What Females Want champions Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection – that courtship drives evolution by controlling whose genes are passed on to the next generation through intense competition.

Hence the frenzied drumming and red chest patches or, in the case of reality TV, thigh-grazing skirts and low-cut tops.

In Part 1, biologist Chadden Hunter travels through the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia to check out a troop of geladas. He finds that there, females call all the shots in mating, even though males are twice their size.

The males are evaluated on everything from body heat to how well they baby-sit. And once he’s selected, the male faces constant threats of another male vying for his job.

What Females Want is an eye-opening special that makes me look at dating reality shows in a different light, and tolerate them more. Plus, it gives new meaning to the phrase “the birds and the bees.”

What Females Want and Males Will Do airs Sunday, March 21, 8 p.m. ET on PBS (check TVGuide.ca listings for local times).

Follow Melissa on Twitter

Follow TV Guide Canada on Facebook!