It has a really cheesy title - God or the Girl - but this particular blend of reality show and documentary is actually not bad. The program introduces us to four 20-something men who are contemplating whether to become priests. Because they are Roman Catholic, for each of them the decision is between a life in the Church and a life with a wife and family. (Hence the cheesy title.) It's actually not as melodramatic as it sounds, since not all of them have actual girlfriends; others must choose whether to give up the idea of marriage in general. Over five episodes, the program follows the participants as they try to work out what they really want and need to do.

The program follows the participants through their daily lives as they attempt to figure out what to choose. It actually doesn't feel voyeuristic at all, though I feared that it would be. While we never see the cameraman, there's no pretense that the camera is "invisible": even when the participants are being filmed "in action" and in conversation, they usually provide commentary on what they're doing or thinking. We also get a lot of voiceovers from the participants, and clips from interviews with both the participants and various people who know them.

The first episode introduces the young men and their basic dilemmas, and the following episodes track them as they make their decisions. While all four have the same basic backgrounds (coming from religious families), their personalities and personal circumstances are different enough to make for a nice variety in their situations. Most are likable right away, like Mike, who seems honestly and painfully torn between the priesthood and a teaching careers, or Joe, who begins to realize how much he's suffering from the pressure of his family. Others... are not so likable Dan, for instance, comes across to me as a self-righteous prig. For instance, as he mentions at the start of the second episode that he went to a strip club to pray for the people there to find purity, I couldn't help but think of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Is Dan, like the Pharisee, too proud of his own elevated standing? (Even his glib self-assurance does get challenged, at least, however briefly.) Steve starts out a bit stiff and self-conscious, but to a surprising degree he steps out of his shell as the program develops.

Each of the participants goes through various activities designed to help them come to a decision, generally in the form of a pilgrimage or retreat away from the pressures of well-meaning friends and family. This is an interesting idea, since it gets at the heart of the decision-making process: how to figure out what's right to do, whether that's articulated as listening to God or listening to one's own heart. Here, we get to see each participant take on different challenges, with different results. Joe, for instance, takes on a solitary pilgrimage in what seems like the best frame of mind, giving himself the opportunity to cut through his long-lasting indecision. On the other hand, Dan's big event is to build and carry an 80-pound wooden cross for 22 miles, in the hopes that it will help him understand "the mystery of the cross" better as he moves toward a decision to enter the priesthood. As he starts, though, it seems that he's taking it too much like a lark, or as a way to showcase his superior relationship with God. Is he going to learn anything from his experience? Is he learning humility, or growing prouder of himself because of what he's doing?

While the specific situation is fairly narrow (all of the participants are specifically considering the Catholic priesthood, which is celibate, whereas other Christian denominations allow for priests to marry), the implications are more broadly applicable. Certainly most viewers will not be grappling with the same decision, of whether or not to enter the priesthood. However, the basic tension between faith and the secular world is something that many viewers will (or could) identify with.

Taken even more broadly, the series focuses on something that everyone will deal with at some point in their lives: making a life-changing decision, whether it's to go to college (and where), to take a particular job or pursue a career, to start or continue a relationship, to have children, or any other major life choice. The reality of choices is that there's not always a single good choice that's clearly the best. Most of the time, the situation is a mix: each option has good or bad points, advantages and disadvantages. How do you choose? That's the main issue that these four participants have to face. We also see the pressure that expectations from others put on the participants, especially Joe's mother and Mike's mentor Father Pauselli. In contrast, we see the benefit of mentors who really help the participants to think things through carefully, as is the case with Steve.

The material is spread out over five episodes, but it really should have been condensed into more like three. In addition to the recaps of the previous episodes, there's some recycling of clips from various interviews, and the participants also tend to summarize events from previous episodes as well. The final episode, in particular, is extremely padded. The main point of the final episode is to reveal the final decisions of the participants, and we also get a nice wrap-up of a "six months later" visit to check on each of them. It took some fast-forwarding to get the "good parts" of the final episode, though.

The DVD

Annoyingly, the episodes start out with a recap of the previous episode and a re-introduction to the participants. That's fine if you were watching these episodes on television spread out over weeks, but on DVD, these really should have been edited out... or at least made into a separate chapter so they'd be skippable.

Video

The episodes here are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The image quality is adequate, but that's it. The image is very soft, and there's major pixellation, with extremely jagged edges on sharp edges. The pixellation is especially noticeable in the occasional slow-motion effect shots. It's watchable, but you shouldn't have any great expectations for how it's going to look. Colors are bright and contrast is handled well, at least.

Audio

The sound quality is satisfactory. The participants' voices are clear, and the overall track is clean and free from noise or distortion for the most part. At times, the sound can get a little bit harsh-sounding, but that's generally only when the filming is taking place under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Extras

There's a substantial amount of extra footage here. To begin with, there's a full "mini-episode" with a fifth participant, Tom Stroka, which runs 27 minutes. It's interesting material, and it really would have made the overall program better if this material had been used instead of some of the padding that we get.

We also get a 14-minute segment of "Priestly wisdom from Father Mark," which is moderately interesting, and 34 minutes of deleted scenes, which don't really add much to what we've already seen.

Final thoughts

While God and the Girl is saddled with a lame title, and does suffer from being drawn out over more episodes than the material really merits, it ends up being a surprisingly engaging viewing experience. The four young men end up being quite candid about their decisions and experiences, with the program giving us an honest glimpse of their decision-making process without feeling voyeuristic. At times it feels a bit stiff, but by the end it becomes more engaging, so that we're genuinely interested in the decision that each one makes. There's really not much replay value here, so I'll give it a solid "rent it" rating for viewers who are intrigued by the subject matter: not necessarily just faith issues, but the idea of making tough life decisions. Rent it.