Entertainment

AGED CHEESE

AFTER tonight’s embarrassing premiere of “Age Of Love,” Kelly Ripa may want to file for divorce from Mark Consuelos.

What’s “Love” got to do with it? I’ll tell you.

This cheese ball of a show is hosted by her gorgeous hunk of a hubby and the fact that he’s involved with such a stinky program should be reason enough to dissolve their vows. Is cruel and inhuman treatment of other women grounds in New York state?

At least he’s not the grand prize the desperate ladies on this eight-episode show are vying for. The guy is Aussie tennis star Mark Philippoussis, a 30-year-old perfect, male specimen who’s lookin’ for true love in all the wrong places – namely a TV show.

To mix it up, the women are divided into two teams: Women in their forties vs. women in their twenties. Because, as the show likes to remind us, age is just a number, the teams aren’t dubbed “old” and “young.” Worse, they are Cougars vs. Kittens.

Despite age meaning nothing, the producers can’t wait for one of the Kittens to say that the “synonym for old is decrepit.” (What number does “decrepit” begin at again?)

Tonight’s opening show focuses on the Cougars – the desperate 40-somethings. In true rip-off reality show fashion, they are first herded into their new living space, a giant apartment in a Los Angeles amid much squealing and many “woo-hoo’s.”

As soon as possible, they, of course, slip into cocktail dresses and present themselves like aged sirloin to the young hunk.

The women range in age from 39 to 48 and are quite attractive but clearly grasping – which is why they’ll never score this or any other guy .

Each woman must present herself to the hunk and admit her age – causing some of them to come close to losing their breath. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to get them some water or smack them silly.

One woman, Jan, makes the fatal mistake of acting Kittenish, asking: “Can you guess my age?”

This gives Tennis Hunk a chance to impart his Confucius-like wisdom off camera, saying, “Whatever you think, go six years younger!”

And even though age doesn’t matter, he also says after meeting the older ladies, “It’s like throwing some piranhas in the deep end with me.”

The Kittens don’t show up until the end, posing like mannequins in sexy outfits – presumably torpedoing the already-low self esteem of the older women.

All this is, of course, disguised as a “learning experience” for everyone involved because, after all, age is just a number.

Love is a number, too. In tennis it equals zero, which is about what I’d score “Age of Love.”

“Age of Love” Tonight at 9 on NBC