Will The Bachelorette choose sensitive Ryan or sexy Charlie

By MICHELE HEWITSON

"Who will she choose? Will he propose? Will she say yes?"

This is the mantra for tonight's final of The Bachelorette (TV2, 9.30).

I seem to remember that episode one promised us telly history in the making. For "the first time in television history a woman would be calling the shots."

Trista Rehn, the "highly educated career woman" who works with kids, was the Bachelorette who got to reject men, week after week, on television.

Tonight, she has to choose between the final two: sensitive Ryan, the poetry-spouting fireman, and sexy Charlie, the accountant.

It's agony. She'd really like both blokes. So, shouldn't she rip up the script and really make telly history by having both? Or at least by proposing to one?

Don't be silly. This is unreality TV but it's never going to get that unreal. The Bachelorette is coy to the last.

One doesn't want to be prurient ... oh, all right, one does: what we really want to know is if she has bonked both of them.

Coy? Here's Trista reminding Charlie that there are still two bachelors in the race.

"I don't want you to think I'm betraying you if I am intimate with Ryan in any way."

Tonight Charlie and Ryan meet Trista's parents and her stepmother. Over dinner, Charlie gets grilled on the intimate details.

"Besides your face, what other parts of your body do you shave?"

Well, you wouldn't want your daughter marrying a guy who gets his legs waxed.

Charlie the charmer owns that he does sometimes clip his chest hair. So the guy's an ape. That's one point against him.

Here's another: Charlie does something with stocks. And Ryan is a firefighter.

No roses for guessing which profession makes you a national hero in the US these days.

But there is the little issue of Ryan's poetry. A sample:

She is to me the rainbow through the rain.

She is to me the laughter through the pain.

It would be like marrying a walking, talking greeting card.

Trista's dad is a bit wary of Ryan: "Ryan is definitely different."

What he really means is: Ryan's a weirdo.

Charlie gets the thumbs up. Trista's dad: "Who wouldn't be impressed by his charisma?"

What he really means is: Charlie's not a weirdo, plus he's got a better job.

Tonight the boys are taken ring shopping. What I really, really want to know is whether the rejected one gets his money back.

This is not in the spirit of the fairytale. In this made-for-TV fairytale nobody ever loses their temper or has a bad-hair day or spills food down their front.

At the end, Trista makes her choice.

Will they make it down the aisle?

Will he tell her he can't stand the way she talks like a baby and laughs like a donkey?

Will we ever find out whether the reject manages to pawn the ring?

More to the point, will you gag at Trista's speech to the chosen one: "I see smiles and laughter, I see babies and grandbabies, I see comfort and safety. I see me in a white dress and I see it with you."