Playing It Straight: Fox’s 2004 dating experiment canceled after three episodes

In 2004, Fox launched Playing It Straight, a reality dating show whose premise was as unusual as it was controversial: a single woman would date 14 men who could be either straight or gay, with a $1 million prize at stake for the final choice. The contestant, Jackie Thomas, a 21-year-old college student from Wisconsin, traveled to a Nevada ranch named Sizzling Saddle to begin the social experiment. The premise was pitched as a test of instinct and attraction, but critics quickly questioned whether a dating show could or should frame sexuality as a guessing game.

Miss Thomas participated in a mix of one-on-one dates and group activities, from shopping outings to a swimsuit fashion show, all designed to blur lines between romance and deduction. A recurring visual gag—a dog named Gaydar in a labeled kennel—opened each episode, a blunt symbol of the show’s approach to sexual identity. The 14 cowboys represented a spectrum of masculinity, with the risk that some would be eliminated not for romantic chemistry but for fitting or challenging preconceptions about sexuality.

Fox canceled the program after three episodes as ratings collapsed and the network confronted backlash to its premise and stereotypes. The format—the way it boxed sexuality into a guessing game—drew immediate criticism for relying on outdated tropes in early-2000s reality television. After the cancellation, Fox posted the unaired and pre-shot episodes on its website, offering a window into what the series might have become.

The winner, Banks, was revealed as straight, and Miss Thomas ultimately dated him for about two years, sharing the prize if they had won together. The outcome underscored the program’s central premise, while also fueling debate about whether the show could or should have been a vehicle for LGBTQ visibility or merely an entertainment spectacle built on stereotypes.

Critics panned Playing It Straight for reinforcing reductive caricatures of gay and straight men. One contemporary review said it was difficult to empathize with Miss Thomas’ plight because the show relied on stereotypes about “short,” “feminine” gay men and about women who could be easily swayed by appearance, a reaction that reflected a broader backlash that would echo in later discussions of reality dating formats.

A British version followed, produced by Channel 4, premiering in 2005 with a second series in 2012. It featured a star-studded presenting and narration team, including June Sarpong and Jameela Jamil as presenters and Alan Carr and Alan Cumming as narrators. The UK prize pot was reduced to £100,000, and the format still faced similar stereotypes, though some reviews noted the irony of presenting such experiments in a country with a different cultural context for sexuality.

Like its American counterpart, the British show struggled to escape outdated attitudes, even as it leveraged its own cultural twist. Critics said the format leaned on “bake a cheesecake” or “row with the roommate” style challenges as tests of sexuality, a device that incited more questions than it answered. In the wake of its reception, some viewers saw it as a comical or ironic social experiment, while others saw it as a missed opportunity to deconstruct stereotypes.

The Playing It Straight concept came amid a wave of early-2000s LGBTQ+ reality dating programs, including Bravo’s Boy Meets Boy in 2003, which centered on a gay bachelor, and later shows such as Gay, Straight or Taken? in 2007. The landscape featured a mix of earnest attempts and sensational gimmicks, all wrestling with how to present LGBTQ themes on mainstream TV. Other related programs, including My Husband’s Not Gay in 2015, aimed to explore sexuality through more nuanced or symbolic narratives, though not without controversy.

By the mid-2010s, legal milestones for LGBTQ rights framed the conversation about these programs. The United States legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, while the United Kingdom followed in 2013/2014; however, debates persisted, with new proposals in some U.S. states and ongoing discussions in other regions. The era’s reality formats were ultimately outgrowths of a culture wrestling with identity, intimacy, and representation.

Channel 4 later revived other formats from its back catalog after a long hiatus, signaling a broader willingness to revisit reality formats with a more self-aware lens. The rebooted concept Faking It, which puts people in unfamiliar professional or social roles to challenge stereotypes, drew near-universal praise—an indicator that contemporary audiences expect formats to engage with nuance rather than simply punishing or praising participants for their beliefs. Whether Playing It Straight could be revived in a modern climate remains uncertain, but its legacy continues to prompt questions about how television measures attraction, identity, and authenticity.