Take 8 engaged couples, add in a touch of the Newlywed Game, throw in a dash of Dog Eat Dog, and top it off with a touch of Road Rules/Real World Challenge and what do you get, you get NBC's new reality series Race to the Altar...

     We get to meet the 8 engaged couples competing in this show as they arrive in Las Vegas in helicopters.  They are:  Grace & Robert, who met in college; Carolyn & Ethan, who at 31 and 36 are the oldest couple; Andy & Becca who have known each other since they were kids (awww); Andree & Tonya, our token minority couple; Jessica & Scott, who are both lawyers; Cindy & Chris, who met o­n a blind date; April and Vinny, who have dated for 10 years;  and Susan & Coyt, who have the biggest age difference between them at 7 years (he's 28, she's 21).     They meet the host outside the Venetian Hotel, which will be their home for the approximately 2 weeks it will take to complete the competition.  We learn that in each episode there will be 2 competitions, a physical challenge and a relationship game.  The couple that wins each of those competitions will be exempt from elimination for that episode and also have the dubious honor of working together to decide which of the remaining teams to eliminate.  We also learn that the grand prize winner will win a wedding planned by a premiere party planner, Colin Cowie.  They are told they will be staying in suites o­n the top floor.  They each look around their suites, which include a very large bathroom, complete with a shower for 2 and a sunken jacuzzi bath.  After a brief social time and strategizing session, we get to hear some of the individual couples talking by themselves.  We learn that Coyt and Susan come from Southern Baptist families and want to win so they can have their wedding, not the wedding their parents want to throw, which would have no alcohol or dancing.  (Do I hear the opening notes of Footloose playing in the background?)  We also learn that Cindy refuses to sleep in the same bed as Chris, because she wouldn't want her parents to see that, so she sleeps o­n the sofa.  She complains that she had asked for different accomodations, but hey I'm sure the sofa in a top floor suite in the Venetian is just as comfortable as a regular bed in the Motel 6.       We are then told that they have the whole next day off, but at 10:30 that night they meet outside the hotel for their physical challenge, appropriately titled "To Have and to Hold".  Each member of each couple is attached by a harness to a wire.  They are standing facing each other o­n a platform.  The host tells them they will be lifted 100 feet in the air and then the platform will be dropped from below them.  They must hold o­nto each other.  If they break that hold, they will be left dangling by themselves individually for the remainder of the game and will be out of the game.  o­ne by o­ne the couples lose their grips until after 13 1/2 minutes, Coyt and Susan are able to out hold Andree and Tonya and become the first "power couple".  They meet with Andree and Tonya after the game and strategize.  They discover that Andy and Becca have been making pacts with at least 3 teams and so Coyt and Susan feel betrayed since they thought they were the o­nly o­nes.  They decide that it's likely they will vote off Andy and Becca unless they win the relationship game.       Another couple runs into trouble when April scratches the cornea of her eye while applying makeup.  She goes to the hospital and is forced to wear an eyepatch for the rest of the episode.  They hope it won't affect the way they are able to play the game.     It's time for the second competiton of the episode, entitled "Pre-nuptial Agreement".  First they ask the men questions about whether they might ask for certain things in their "pre-nup": these include whether they would require sex at least 4 times a week; whether she should call his mother "Mom"; whether he would have to be told before she spoke to an ex-boyfriend; and several like minded questions.  The team who gets to 4 questions first would be the winner.  After 4 questions, there are 4 couples left, so they continue the game until there are 3 left and 2 of them don't match, leaving (guess who) Andy and Becca as the second power couple.  Susan, forgetting that she is safe and now has to sit down with them and decide who has to go home, lashes out at Becca saying that she understands they want her and Coyt gone, which was never mentioned by anyone in the strategizing.  Becca reminds her that they can't be voted off, because they are the other power couple.  We then see Coyt and Susan back in their suite and Coyt is madder than a hornet at her and I don't blame him.  She may have ruined their chances of winning just by opening her mouth at the wrong time.       That evening, it's time for the 2 power couples to mend fences and deliberate o­n who to send home, while the others wait in a hospitality room and discuss what transpired between the 2 couples.  The couples appear to patch things up for now and come to a decision.  We then head back outside where the host reads off couples o­ne by o­ne who have been invited back for another episode and then it finally reaches the end and Jessica & Scott are the couple eliminated.  We see Coyt wanted them gone because they're lawyers and could use their deliberating skills to eliminate them.  We learn that Jessica & Scott have set a wedding date of October 2, 2004.  I wish them the best of luck!  We'll see what happens between our warring couples next week and whether April and Vinny are able to perform the physical challenge with April impaired with o­nly o­ne eye to see out of.

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