Lovestruck High (Amazon Prime) is the latest in a long line of objectively terrible dating shows that drag you into its vacuous dramas before you have the chance to realise that hours have passed and the light within you has dimmed to a compliant darkness that can only think in terms of who is going to be “pied off” next. The idea, which must have been flagged as “iffy” at any number of meetings but went ahead regardless, is that a bunch of Love Island-ish twentysomethings pretend to be going to an American-style high school, with the goal of finding love and winning $100,000 (£80,000). They are all British, bar one Irish guy, so I hope everyone is keeping an eye on the exchange rate. Sending heavily tattooed adults to a fake school for pretend lessons helmed by actors playing teachers who infantilise them, in the hope that they all hook up? I watched Open House: The Great Sex Experiment, so it’s hard to be surprised.
It owes an aesthetic debt to Sex Education, with its bright colour scheme and British boarding school meets American high school kitsch. But its biggest homage is to Made in Chelsea. It is shot in that distinctive scripted reality style – what is the technical name for an earnest chat about feelings encircled by a camera in the style of a lion stalking its prey? – with a lot of slow-motion shots of toned bodies “doing PE”. Everything is engineered to create unnecessary conflict and tension, which makes it hopelessly, shamefully addictive.
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