By now we’re all familiar with the structure of the Love is Blind ‘experiment’. Attractive singles thus far unlucky in love spend two weeks going on blind dates (in the most literal sense: they can’t see each other) in twinned pods, culminating in a whittling down of ‘connections’ to a proposal. Only once engaged can they be dramatically revealed to each other for the first time, prompting another proposal. Then they all get thrown together for a sunny holiday, before moving in together and prepping for a wedding – essentially speed-running the journey down the aisle.
The question of whether people can fall in love quickly and without eye contact – aided and abetted with some light sleep deprivation and moderate alcohol consumption – has already been resoundingly answered (the answer is no, by the way) by six US seasons. But could it work in Great Britain, where cynicism and playing the field is a national sport?
America has proved fertile ground for the show, where young Christians with an Evangelical bent can be scooped up from southern states. When your mid-twenties are culturally framed as lurching into left-on-the-shelf territory, there are obviously piles of telegenic youngsters with dreams of diamond rings and Instagram followings to cast. In the UK, those are your prime Love Island years; you’d rather be rizzing people up by the pool in the sun than locked in an artificially lit pod for a fortnight.
Love is Blind: UK gets around this by casting a wider net, with cast members in their late twenties to mid-thirties. The result is pretty great. In the majority they are refreshingly stable, well-adjusted and - dare I say it – highly therapised. Many of them, such as the gorgeous Freddie the funeral director (“Calm down, I’m not gunna embalm ya”) with massive arms, or sultry Sabrina with her Belfast burr and quiet confidence, make you wonder why on earth they are still single.
Cocooned in the anodyne anonymity of the pod, all the heart-wrenchingly relatable baggage comes out. Adoption, infertility fears, grief and loss, divorce and heartbreak. Even the character who seems closest to becoming the season’s villain seems to be motivated mainly by a desperate desire to be loved by anyone. Unfortunately, their mercenary approach leads to the worst accusation one can have levied against them in the Love is Blind extended universe: being in it for fame, not love.
Casting is diverse-ish, albeit limited to hot, heterosexual and non-disabled. The producers have clearly tried to cram in as many regional accents as possible, which is delightful. Although, the B-roll of daters riffing on ‘vicky sponge’ and Arsenal versus Spurs are clearly calculated to appeal to an American audience. What right-minded person thinks a Victoria sponge is the best cake flavour?!
The outlines of the ‘experiment’ are ill-disguised and conferring between cast members constrained to ramp up the tension. Either or both the contestants and producers seem hyper aware that expressing any form of disappointment with the physical reality of your fiancé post-reveal is immediate grounds for a lambasting on social media. Luckily, everyone is pretty much a smokeshow and the new lovers seem genuinely into each other – frazzled assistants presumably just out of shot trying to pull them apart.
If the contestants got to walk out of the pods and into the sunset then yes, love probably would be blind. But there’d also be minimal conflict, and that’s what the reality TV machine demands. The real drama begins when the new couples are thrown together in exotic locales (well, Corfu, in this case) and can test the chemistry out with their other ‘connections’ from the pod phase.
Everyone has joined the show out of a frustration with modern dating, where app saturation and social media has everyone always looking over your shoulder for an upgrade. But an epidemic of grass is always greener syndrome means that the minute the blindfold is whipped off wing’d cupid, the wheels come off on romance. It makes for bingeable television, but modern love’s problems can’t be solved with pods.
