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“The participants will pair off by themselves. It will be up to them,” says executive producer Bruce Toms of Bunim-Murray Productions, producers of the hit MTV series The Real World and Road Rules.

“It’s going to be fairly flexible. But every 48 hours you get to re-pair if you don’t like what you have. That’s where things should get interesting.”

The Bathing Suit Litmus Test

Of course, after the debacle of Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire, casting is going to be quite rigorous. We’re talking background checks, credit checks, STD checks, even psychological testing.

On top of it all, you should be comfortable wearing a bathing suit on TV.

“If you look at this purely as a blind date, you will have a lot of assurances that there isn’t a red flag in your potential mate’s past,” says casting supervisor Laura Korkoian.

If only Darva Conger could say that …

Other new shows in development are going to get even more daring. In NBC’s Chains of Love, four men will be chained to a woman, and every 24 hours she’ll cut one free. Talk about Love, American Style — can you imagine a round-the-clock date with no potty breaks to despair in privacy that you could have avoided all this if only you had listened to Mom?

If you prefer both fists raised in a TV free-for-all, Temptation might be your new show. Here, four or five couples will test their loyalty at an exotic resort, where they will be set up with singles who fit each partner’s ideal of a “dream date.”

Of course, these couples can’t be married or have children, and they must have been involved for six months.

“It’s a hybrid of many ideas,” says executive producer Chris Cowan. “We want to create a primetime soap opera. It’s not a prize-oriented show.”

The couples will be separated to retest the dating waters. Then, they’ll be brought together again and we get to see the fireworks.