I have, from time to time, become stuck with the most unfortunate of addictions – reality TV. It was another classic hungover Thursday when I found myself multiple episodes deep into Love Is Blind, a show that seemed perfectly designed to fulfil my guilty pleasure. The show has a simple premise: to determine whether love truly is ‘blind’ and whether an unbreakable bond can be formed through chemistry alone. The show starts with a group of sixteen singletons going on a series of blind dates in different ‘pods’ that are separated by a thin wall so that none of the contestants ever actually see each other. The contestants date every day for a couple of weeks until they either decide to propose to someone, or leave single. Shock horror – by the end of the show, six couples emerged with engagement rings.
The concept for the experiment struck me as interesting, that being said, the execution left much to be desired. The first thing I noticed was that ALL of the contestants were objectively good looking. I’m not entirely sure how this helps determine whether love is blind or not, but I guess sex sells. My next issue with the show came when the first bloke to propose, did so after a mighty FIVE DAYS. Even as someone firmly in the ‘catch feelings quick’ camp, I found this rather unbearable to watch. Seeing two people drop the L-bomb after a measly five dates was so cringe-worthy that it physically hurt. I’m sure these two contestants shared something special, but … please.
Following their hasty engagements, the new couples jetted off to Mexico for a romantic getaway. Here the show takes a noticeable turn – from cringey but watchable, to a total fucking abomination. Every word uttered is needlessly profound and not a sentence passes that doesn’t contain the word ‘love’. After the holiday, it’s a sharp snap back to reality for some. The couples move in together and begin to plan their weddings. Here is where they first begin to realise that perhaps they’re not as infatuated as they previously thought they were. To be completely honest, the next few episodes were horrifically boring and uneventful, so I’ll skip straight to the wedding episode. This episode, aside from the first, is really the only noteworthy one. After wasting several hours watching these relationships flourish, I deserved to witness their culmination. Credit where credit is due, the weddings were funny, eventful, and it really was edge-of-the-seat stuff to see who said “I do”, and who didn’t. Being the last episode, it was also a relief to finally get to the end.
Overall this show gets a solid 1 star from me, which hardly makes up for the flak I received from my flatmates for watching it to begin with. The experiment was flawed, the contestants were annoying, and the show was just plain desperate. The only reason for the solitary star is that it is annoyingly addictive. With the imminent semi-closure of LSE, many of you may find yourselves with an increased amount of time on your hands … I implore you to stay as far away from this show as humanly possible. I lost 8 hours of my life to Love is Blind, don’t make the same mistakes that I did.
