‘Sunset Daze’ shows you’re never too old for love

They have tattoos, enjoy extreme sports, don't wear underwear, brag about their sex toys and seem hell-bent on hooking up. So what separates this new crop of reality TV stars from the thousands who came before them? Almost all of them are old enough to remember a time before television.

Welcome to "Sunset Daze" (10 p.m. Wednesday, WE tv), which chronicles the exploits of the residents of a sprawling Arizona retirement community.

Think of it as "(Over) The Hills." Or "The Really Old Housewives of Surprise, Ariz." The format is familiar, but by focusing exclusively on seniors, "Sunset Daze" adds a new wrinkle, so to speak, to reality TV. And the result is alternately uplifting and horrifying.

"Sometimes I think about not finding love again because of my age. But nobody's too old to find love," says Sandy, 68, who was widowed three-and-a-half years ago. "But if it doesn't happen, B.O.B. is there -- my battery-operated boyfriend -- just in case I need to fill some needs."

Despite his third divorce, 72-year-old Jack remains upbeat in his search for romance. "I have a great sex life," he says. "I just need to find someone to share it with."

That loud thud you just heard? That was the sound of dozens of grandchildren keeling over from embarrassment.

"Sex, like wine, gets better with age," viewers are told in the beginning of "Sunset Daze." I'm not sure if it's better, but the quest for it certainly seems more relentless.

During a hot-air balloon ride, Sandy's blind date can't stop peppering her with jokes about joining the mile-high club, and he insists she once revealed that she was multiorgasmic. At one point, he confesses that he has "been trying to get in her pants for the last five, six years."

I've seen more subtle mating rituals on Animal Planet.

Sandy, though, doesn't fare much better. After a brief skeet-shooting lesson, she begins pursuing her instructor with the reckless abandon of a coed in one of those ads for Axe body spray. When she isn't throwing herself at the guy, she's calling him "really good looking," "very easy on the eyes" and "very manly," commenting that he "looked really hot in his jeans" and declaring him "doable."

Honestly, it's as though someone mixed some Ecstasy in with the Geritol.

But not every scene plays out like something Joel McHale would have produced just to get clips for "The Soup."

Take Ann, 61, who left an Irish convent at 39 after 21 years of service. "It's like my whole life went by me and I wasn't aware," she laments. That's one of several reasons why she has decided to go sky diving -- and without a single "Flying Nun" joke. "I need to embrace," she adds, "all that is left of my life."

And Jack's rimshot-worthy assessment of his love life belies a certain amount of melancholy. He has been dating Kathleen for about a year, but when he tells her he loves her, she doesn't respond. She later informs him she's "not ready for a committed relationship," but that she might be by the time she's in her 80s.

Mostly, though, "Sunset Daze" seems to revel in the moments that play out like a community theater version of "Cocoon."

Sandy and her friends scream about their vibrators. Random elderly women perform some type of modern dance involving handguns. And an upcoming episode features pole-dancing lessons.

But for a sheer jaw-dropper, the sort of image that will burn itself into your retinas and haunt you for days, it's hard to top the scene of an anonymous senior, shot from behind, climbing into a hot tub as naked and wrinkled as the day she was born. The kicker? Just above her weathered, bare backside is a butterfly tramp stamp.

While you have to admire everyone for putting themselves out there like that, it's fairly evident they're not in on the joke.

It's worth hoping "Sunset Daze" doesn't become a hit, just so its cast members can avoid the typical reality star path: hosting a night at Pure or Tao, having Perez Hilton link them romantically to John Mayer, and the release of the obligatory sex tape, albeit one directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

Better that they get out now while the only thing fake about them might be their teeth and the occasional hip.

Coincidentally, those are the only real parts left on Heidi Montag, and no one wants to end up like that.

You can almost hear those grandkids reminding them of the phrase they likely heard countless times growing up: Act your age.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.