A fresh-faced 28-year-old real estate broker named Amy makes this announcement to the camera in the third episode of “Hooking Up”: “I have to keep my objective – to find the right guy, and buy a house in the suburbs, and wake up on the weekend with kids jumping on the bed.” The dating documentary from ABC News debuts Thursday at 9 p.m. and deserves to become the most talked-about new series on television this summer. “That is the plan. That is the objective. I wish I could go home and he was already there, already the guy I’ve been looking for 28 flippin’ years. How long does it take to find the guy? It’s just a lifelong roommate. Why is it so difficult?”

Amy’s searing Desperation Proclamation provides the narrative drive for “Hooking Up,” a remarkable five part journey into the nightmare of online dating in New York City, circa 2005. It is truly chilling television – the kind of show that will make married people clutch their spouses close with anxious gratitude and will send panicked single women to the grocery-store freezer in search of a gallon-size tub of Breyer’s ice cream. These cinema verite portraits of women – all of them attractive and articulate – in rapid pursuit of a husband, capture the conundrum faced by those who see ticking clocks on every wall. Out of frustration they have turned to the Internet, only to discover, sadly, that their search for love can’t be hastened by a high-speed broadband connection.

“Hooking Up” compels us to watch because it is true reality – not one of the faux, crafted reality shows being foisted upon us all summer by the networks and cable channels, but real women allowing TV cameras to capture their genuine pain for an audience of millions. ABC News producer Terence Wrong – who delivered last summer’s “NYPD 24/7,” a far less successful series that purported to take us inside the New York City police department – has gone far deeper with this topic; his cameras followed 11 women over a period of several weeks and found more drama than a season’s worth of “Sex and the City.” Yes, it probably says something about these women that they’d agree to allow ABC News to chronicle their pain, but maybe they figured that national TV exposure might help their cause – or that of single women everywhere.

It’s not that these women are likeable; in fact, most have off-putting characteristics that help explain their predicament. Foremost among the annoying women is Cynthia, a 34-year-old manager of a hair salon, who considers herself a spectacular beauty and can’t comprehend her repeated failures in the dating scene. (Could it have to do with the ongoing presence of what she refers to as “booty calls” – men she calls on her cell phone, immediately after her miserable dates, for sex? I wonder.) Cynthia gets the men she deserves, including a hideous dude with a fake British accent who describes himself as a “Fabio” type. He shows up late, shakes his scruffy mane, and asks “Is my hair all right?” He even suggests splitting the bill before Cynthia bolts.

But then there’s Claire, a gorgeous, sweet 26-year-old ad executive who tends to fall for men no one deserves, and convince herself that each is the Catch of the Day. On one date she meets a rocker with hideous, pointy sideburns and inexplicably declares him a hottie. (He dumps her by email.) And there’s Kelly, a 35-year-old schoolteacher who lets a rich prospective boyfriend convince her to tattoo his name on her back on the first date – only to get dropped after the third.

Women come and go with some regularity on “Hooking Up,” and Mr. Wrong cleverly intercuts their stories with post-date impressions told directly into the camera. There’s no narration here, no guidance; it’s raw material designed to force us into our own conclusions as we watch them descend into the muck of crushes and commitment. If there’s an unstated theme to “Hooking Up,” it’s that the control women have over relationships in their early 20s – the power of sexual favor – dissipates quickly when the prospect of marriage and monogamy enter the picture. That’s when men dominate the equation, suddenly asserting their power to weaken women by taking away their authority.

In that context the ongoing story of real estate broker Amy is perhaps the most interesting to watch, if only because she’s got the clearest sense of her goals, and yet still uses sex to move them forward. By the end of Episode 3, she has slept with two of her dates and is contemplating marriage to a third. She speaks her mind to the men, issues ultimatums, and declares at one point that the future of one relationship depends totally on the “kissability” factor. But it obviously doesn’t, or she might have married the make-out king she met in Episode 1.

Some will find “Hooking Up” distasteful and a wrongheaded use of dwindling network news resources. Others will question its intimacy or even its accuracy. How, after all, can human beings behave honestly in private moments while a camera crew looks on? But I found it refreshing to see a news division seek out certain truths about the human condition by applying its newsgathering standards to a longitudinal study of human behavior. Knowing that news cameras made this possible, I trusted the honesty of “Hooking Up” – and having watched three episodes, felt rewarded by its realistic, if terrifying, window into a topsy-turvy world of pleasure and pain. This is true reality TV – there will be no prizes, no winners, and no happy endings.

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The first, highly entertaining episode of “Rock Star: INXS” did, in fact, finally show up in the mail, just 48 hours before airtime last night. A CBS senior vice president requested a correction of my statement last week that it wasn’t being screened for critics. To that I say, thanks for reading my column!