Lay in victuals and potable water. Put your cats in a cattery. Hand your children over to a reliable childminder or, if you’re not that bothered, an elderly aunt. Then, and only then, do I advise that you settle down to watch Love Is Blind. And this is because Love Is Blind (the Netflix reality dating show in which participants communicate with each other only from isolated pods and decide to get engaged on the basis of conversation alone, then live together for a month before the actual wedding – an actual wedding – takes place) is, basically, crack. Or meth. It’s crack-meth. You will decide to give it five minutes before bed one night and find yourself still on the sofa as the sun rises on another day. You will be bleary-eyed and shattered from all the shouting you have done, the emotional investment you have made, the WhatsApp messages you have typed to a specially formed group and the heartfelt contributions you have made to various internet forums on the subject.
It’s that good, is what I am saying. Not “good” in any moral sense, obviously. In many ways, it is the final blow to the final nail in the coffin of civilisation, and possibly humanity, as we know it. It is, after all, a reality show that requires participants to communicate with each other only from isolated pods, decide to get engaged on the basis of conversation alone, then live together for a month before the actual wedding – an actual wedding – takes place. Could we exploit emotional frailties, profane the sacred, make the private and precious public and worthless and turn it into voyeuristic ratings-bait any more ruthlessly or efficiently?
But it is good in reality-TV terms. Which is to say, in exploiting emotional frailties, profaning the sacred, making the private and precious public and worthless and turning it into voyeuristic ratings-bait. It gets under your skin. You will want to slap sense into some contestants, and cradle others in your arms. You will care whether 34-year-old Jessica chooses Mark or Barnett, or wonder whether Amber’s self-confidence could be tapped and redistributed to those in deficit around the globe. You will find yourself cogitating upon the potential ramifications of a 10-year age gap. You will ponder long into the night – and for many nights after – which one you would have picked, whether it is possible to fall in love without seeing someone in the flesh and much, much more.
Your subconscious will be mulling it over, too, and unwanted realisations will fall on you as you are going about your mindless business elsewhere. I was in the self-service queue at the supermarket, for example, when I was vouchsafed the realisation that, embedded so deeply in the show as to be almost invisible, is the belief that life is over at 35. Jessica is the oldest contestant and both she and everyone else feel that the show is absolutely her last chance saloon.
For a UK audience there is perhaps even more to boggle at than for a native US one. The shameless speechifying about their trust issues, their traumas, how easily they love, how much they have been hurt, how they see themselves, how others see them, how much they are connecting with the person in the other pod (described in real time) … It is horrifying, emetic and absolutely transfixing. They must put truth serum in the water supply. It’s incredible.
A UK audience may also be more alert to the one great failing – possibly a deliberate one that amounts to an act of cowardice – of the show. Every one of the candidates is hot. Maybe some are a little hotter than others, but they are all camera-ready. There are no real risks taken here. There is no real testing of the central hypothesis that looks are unimportant in the quest for true love. Or, I suppose if you were looking more kindly on the decision, there is no setup for schadenfreude here. When the doors pull back to reveal the betrothed to each other, there is no chance viewers will get to crow with delighted horror as one perfectly contoured face struggles to maintain its composure as a warty homunculus with a great personality shuffles towards them, trailing clouds of stink and flies. I mean, there are limits to social experiments, right?
Anyway. Love Is Blind is absurd, revolting, endearing, toxic and wholesome by turns – and addictive as hell throughout. I bingewatched as many episodes as reviewers were given and bayed for more. I have never felt better or worse about myself, the world or my fellow citizens. Book the cattery. Enjoy.
