Why Love Is Blind: The UK version is different from the US version

This post contains mild spoilers about the couple’s ending Love is Blind: United Kingdom

In 1776, Americans, hungry for independence and freedom, overthrew British rule. Some 250 years later, we finally exacted a unique revenge on British rule: by subjecting them to a uniquely American culture and romantic practice, Love is blind.

In the United States, it has performed strongly for six consecutive quarters. Love is blind It has become one of Netflix’s most popular shows and is The most obvious reality TV romance shows. This is largely because Love is blindThe pseudoscientific lockdown prediction premise: Men and women separated by gender try to find the love of their lives without ever meeting each other. They communicate only in “pods,” which are small, self-contained rooms that share a wall. show has produced a number of happy couples, roughly the same number Divorce and Separationthe fascinating heterosexual confusion that is difficult to quantify, and Even some lawsuits Claims the environment is toxic.

Now, the UK has its own 11-part version.

The pods, the golden goblets, the shared trauma of love all make this overseas journey complete. The British version is as worth watching as the American one. But what’s most surprising about the British version is how sincere and romantic it is; the couple gives the audience something to root for, which is not often seen in American versions these days. Love is Blind: U.K. It feels like being able to go back to season 1 of U.S. Love is blindand then it developed into the program it is today.

To learn more about the British version of Love is blind Different needs to know what kind of performances the United States Love is blind The show was originally supposed to test whether singles could fall in love without ever meeting each other, but after six seasons, it has become increasingly confusing.

It turns out that when a group of men and women agree to get engaged and live together with someone they’ve never met in the name of love while their actions are filmed, edited, and broadcast publicly on one of the world’s largest streaming platforms, not every couple can live happily together. But the emotionally intense premise of the reality show inevitably brings out the worst in some people – and that’s exactly what the producers want.

Season 1The show, which aired during the 2020 lockdown, led to two marriages and was generally considered pretty sweet. But the real star was Jessica, a hapless 30-something from Illinois. In the series, Jessica falls in love with a man named Barnett, but he doesn’t choose her. She ends up getting engaged to another man named Mark, which seems more like a ploy to stay on the show long enough to get to know Barnett than love for Mark. During one of her low moments, Jessica feeds her dog red wine.

After Jessica’s season, the producers began tweaking the show’s format, seemingly to maximize drama. In recent seasons, the cast has increasingly appeared in front of the camera as a group, which has little to do with “experimentation” but does increase the potential for jealousy and regret. We also learned from a lawsuit filed against the show that there is a Alcohol content is too high On site and Some reported lack of sleep — which is an unhealthy combination, coupled with the inherently emotionally stressful nature of being on a reality show.

It’s not hard to understand why many of the couples on this show tend to break up, even after they’ve left the high-pressure, surreal environment in which they met. It’s not surprising that the characters on this show behave badly and sometimes extremely awkwardly. They’re at the mercy of a machine designed for disaster, and one that has created some of reality TV’s biggest villains.

Season 2 Introduced a beautiful menace named Shana, who, like Jessica, plagued the couple she was paired with early in the series. That episode also gave us Sheik, a man obsessed with finding a woman light enough to carry on his shoulders. Season 5there were flies in his toilet, and he probably humiliated his fiancée by monitoring how many oranges she ate. Season 6 One of the many behind-the-scenes scandals that have come out of the show is that Trevor, the handsome, fan-favorite actor on the show, was allegedly dating someone else when the series began filming. Chapter Six also tells the story of Jeramey, who broke off his engagement because a pod suitor slid into his DMs during filming.

At this time, the title Love is blind It couldn’t be emptier. Something is blind, but it doesn’t seem to be love. For many Americans watching at home, the show was less about bearing witness to the power of love than about watching a group of new hopefuls unfurl the reddest flag you’ve ever seen — and then breathing a sigh of relief because you’ll never have to date these people again.

While the real “experiment” has been tweaking the show’s format until it becomes a brutal torture factory, the British version isn’t quite that, and that alone makes it totally worth watching.

Maybe it’s because this is the first season, or maybe it’s because the British view of love is different (Love Island Still, the Netflix reality show spinoff has morphed into a more sincere and hopeful version of itself across the pond. Six couples have emerged from the show, according to reports. Five-shaft coupling It failed to make the air. This was a very successful batting average compared to the United States. Love is blind (There were only two engaged couples in season five).

A big part of that is because the British actors and casting directors really went above and beyond the call of duty this season.

have Freddie MacAt 32, he goes to the gym twice a day and is probably the most handsome, most muscular undertaker you’ve ever seen in your life. Likewise, his opponent Katherine is a beautiful dental nurse who also teaches children with Down syndrome to swim. While I have no doubt that such beautiful and kind people do exist in real life, I’m not sure if any of us will ever meet them, especially on reality TV.

Besides being incredibly attractive and likable, what makes Freddie, Catherine, and their ilk so fun to watch is that they feel incredibly real. Obviously, authenticity on reality TV is a relative, variable scale. But from their shy first encounter to Kate arguing about how annoying Freddie is when she takes him shopping, they seem to genuinely want their relationship to work. Sexy people can also be incredibly annoying—perhaps Freddie was never taught how to behave in a department store—and it’s nice to see Kate address that, and Freddie not sugarcoating his flaws for the camera.

The same goes for Tom and Maria, who have one of the most honest arguments on the show. Maria, a makeup artist, asks Tom if he would date her in real life. Tom, a PR executive, truthfully tells her that before the experiment, he wouldn’t date someone in her profession.

“I was a little critical when I first heard what you were doing,” Tom told Maria, then added lightly: “I can be a little critical sometimes.”

She’s upset and ends the conversation. He’s angry that she can’t see that he’s changed his mind. Neither of them has been able to resolve this issue well, and perhaps it’s an issue that will never be resolved. (Spoiler: Tom and Maria don’t get married.)

Tom’s brutal assessment is the conflict at the heart of the show’s so-called mission. Love is blind It’s that people are so limited by who they think they’ll fall in love with and what they look like that we won’t consider a relationship with someone who doesn’t fit those boxes. If those boxes were broken down, people might be able to find the love of their life – or not. Tom and Maria are grappling with an honest, understandable struggle that might never have happened if not for the show’s high stakes.

Tom and Maria’s disagreement over Maria’s job and Kate and Freddy’s argument over Freddy’s shopping etiquette are so far removed from the chaos in the American version that it begs the question of why and how it happened. It’s the closest Britain has ever come to It’s a love triangle Nicole, her rival Benaya, and a pod suitor named Sam. Despite Benaya warning Nicole that Sam isn’t here “for the right reasons”, she chooses Sam before realizing her mistake. The implied wrong “reason” is that Sam looks more like you in Love IslandThis is a very popular dating show in the UK, and the contestants have gone on to become influential figures.

Sam seemed more eager to be famous and gain fans than to find love, and on his first try in the UK, that was easy Love is blind Spot this kind of contestant. Sam stands out because everyone on the show is so new, and a lot of people haven’t figured out how it all works yet. People are still vying for jobs and talking candidly about their hopes and dreams, and Sam is a little too smooth and too rehearsed. He’s a lot like several of his counterparts from USA season six.

Whether the show can survive in its current state is perhaps the most subtle and interesting thing about it. The longer the show lasts (Already renewed The later it gets to air a second season, the more likely it is that it will eventually fall into the American problem of participants knowing too much about themselves and how Netflix hits work. Almost inevitably, there will be more and more Sams, probably culled from hits that weren’t hot enough. Love IslandThere will probably be more and more producer meddling. These tweaks might even make the show more popular, but it won’t be like the first season, which was very good.