Jo Thornely recaps First Dates Australia 2017 episode 1

TWO singles matched on First Dates are the most Aussie couple ever. It involved a mullet and the admission: “I’m sh*ttin’ me pants”.

IT’S back! First Dates, the show about steak, boobs, and awkward silences is BACK.

There are a few new things. New restaurant. New buff waiter. New wang-shaped mushrooms.

Looks like a fun guy.

But the same old formula is there: get a couple of people who seem compatible (is that the right word?) on paper, chuck them in a decent nosh parlour, and see what happens. And what happens is possibly the broadest variety of — admittedly only heterosexual for this episode — dates imaginable.

There is:

THE ACCIDENTALLY BORING COUPLE

In the real world Jennifer and Ed aren’t a boring couple, but they’re crammed in with some fairly extreme personality types, so they suffer by comparison. It’s like they’re the control couple for a bizarre experiment.

In fact, pretty much the most interesting thing about them is that Jennifer’s chosen to match a cocktail dress with sneakers.

In case she needs to do a runner

These kids are nice enough — she’s a pretty romantic who hopes for an Englishman who makes her giggle, and he’s an Englishman who makes her giggle. Happily for him, she finds things like dropping a potato on the floor and then eating it hilarious.

Just want to see what shoes you’re weari … oh.

They chat. They smile. They laugh, OH how they laugh, her CHEEKS are SORE from laughing.

They agree to a second date. It’s nice. Goodbye.

Wanna go be boring a second time somewhere else?

THE UNTROUBLED BY TOO MUCH THINKING COUPLE

The ridiculously gorgeous Jasmine tells us a bit about herself before her date with Ryan.

“People just think I’ve got zero brains” she says, and we wait for the second half of the sentence where she tells us that she is, in fact, quite smart.

There is no second half of the sentence.

Jasmine says she’s looking for a muscular guy who’s “heaps chill”, and the affable but uncomplicated Ryan seems perfect.

Except for the heaps chill bit.

The date is basically Jasmine saying inexplicable, astounding things and Ryan slicing off little bits of his heart and handing them to her each time.

When he tells her he went to a wedding in a winery with barrels along one wall, she says “YEAH! Barrel, I think I’ve been there. That’s where I went to my winery thing”.

I shot some fish last time I was in Barrel.

Jasmine claims that she’s always wanted to go to Luna Park, because she hasn’t been there since she was 12.

Jasmine announces that she’s training for a Sydney to Wollongong bike race, but it’s difficult as she doesn’t have a bike.

Jasmine says she listens to audiobooks on YouTube, and she likes the old ones that Big Brother is based on, like “I just listened to this one called 1984? Is that what it’s called? It might be 1960-something, but it’s like four numbers”.

FINALLY a girl who knows how to count numbers

By the time Jasmine and Ryan get to Awkward Question time, it’s literally a no-brainer — they’re going on a second date. Jasmine sums it up perfectly.

“I think we’re the same smart”, she says.

It’s a match made in … y’know, sky place.

THE INCOMPARABLE COUPLE

Now I ain’t saying Karen’s a gold digger. But she does believe that exchanging big boobs for a mansion and a fancy car is a fair swap.

Recently renovated, no airconditioning.

Her date, real estate guy Abdul, likes to cut a dashing, cashing figure with expensive cars and eight different kinds of regular exercise, but he seems immune to Karen’s twin peaks. He’d probably marry his steak if it was legal in this country, though.

Her name is Diane and she’s his bit on the side (of his mouth)

In a supremely uncomfortable clash of dysfunction at two opposite ends of the social spectrum, Karen pulls out all the stops, telling Abdul she exercises naked, begging him to look at her boobs, and telling us she flirts by talking about how hot it is.

By contrast, Abdul’s personality is. well … that guy sure can eat a steak.

Initially Karen is delighted to discover, via a series of blatant questions, that Abdul is in the correct tax bracket.

Her assets just liquefied.

But then, just as suddenly, she observes almost everything that Abdul says or does.

Her purse just slammed shut.

Never have two people been so sure that they’re oozing the exact kind of appeal that they’re not.

Abdul swiftly declines a second date, assuring Karen several times that they’re “incomparable”.

She thinks he probably means “incompatible”. We think he probably means “she’s not steak”.

And finally:

THE GREATEST AUSSIE COUPLE ALIVE

Mate, I can’t even start. It wouldn’t matter which words I picked to describe the most magnificent Australian to ever drive a truck, none would paint you a portrait quicker than a picture.

Yeah nah, meet Jake.

It almost shouldn’t matter who Jake’s date is — so drenched in both sweat and undeniable glory is he that nobody else matters — except it happens to be Bec, the sweetest sheila who ever just wanted a bloke to take her four-wheel-driving on Saturdays you ever saw.

Bloody top sort.

The only way to describe this date is via a glossary of the country’s most outstanding classic idioms. Or, if you’re not a wanker, a bloody translation of a tops chinwag.

For example, when Jake tells us he’s “Absolutely shittin’ me pants, just sittin’ at the bar like a ton of bricks, sweatin’”, he means “Awaiting Rebecca, my heart a-flutter”.

Warmer than freshly-ironed Nullarbor.

When Jake responds to Bec’s statements regarding her vocation and hobbies and whatnot, “Yeah righto, no way” means “Fascinating, do go on”.

When Bec tells us “He’s got a mullet, but that’s okay. We can workshop the mullet”, we can only hope she means “I shall never touch the mullet, because mullets are sacred and god-like”.

“Drivin’ around, bein’ a mad dog” means “truck driver”.

“Let’s get into some of this friggin’ healthy shit” means “gosh, is that broccoli?”.

And “It was a shit hot date, nah, it was great” means “It was a shit hot date”.

There’s only one thing for these legends to do now.

Get some hectic pash rash, ya champs.

Look, I know the bit just before the credits implied that these two didn’t work out, but I reckon book the pub just in case. I love a country weddin’.

Jo Thornely is a writer who loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her @JoThornely