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Hello! In the fourth installment of my weekly-but-then-sometimes-posted-in-random-increments Dilletante's Review, I will be tackling the first ever series in the history of.. whatever this is I'm doing. I probably should have picked something I liked a lot, like for example Catherine the Great, but.. Keep in mind I started the reviews with one of the worst movies I've seen, so we're not going the easy route here.

I know this was a little bit of a spoiler of my opinion, but it's a bit more complicated than a simple negativity. The series I will be talking about here is Love Is Blind - season 2 to be precise. It's a reality show that aired on Netflix, that essentially is a social experiment that.. well, does many things wrong, but it also has interesting aspects. Learn more in the next few paragraphs as I will try to see both the good and the bad sides of the show.

Synopsis

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As this is a reality show series rather than a fiction one, there is no proper plot happening - instead, we are following real people doing real things. The one catch here is pretty obvious: everything is edited and we only see whatever the producers of the show want us to see. Nothing special or new here, but wanted to point this out before I got to explaining the show.

Love Is Blind looks to find proof to answer the question "is love really blind?" and perhaps that could be the real title of the show. The series puts a number of contestants - even amounts of men and women - in a building, divided into two parts: one with all the guys, and the other one with all the girls. The only way for people of opposite gender to communicate is via special pods with audio devices, where they cannot see each other.

The producers and editors provide us with a number of scenes throughout the series in which we see the interactions both between the guys/girls themselves in their common areas, as well as the opposite genders talking within the pods. The only way a person can see someone of the opposite gender is if they propose to them - hence "Love Is Blind".

Once the time in the pods is over, the show takes all engaged couples to a tropical getaway, where they finally can spend time together. This is followed by them having to live their normal lives together for another few weeks, after which the wedding ceremonies happen. This is where the show concludes, showing the viewers which couples said "yes!" at the altar and which haven't. The last episode is a reunion where the couples meet in a studio to discuss the show with its hosts.

My Opinion

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Love Is Blind seemed like an incredibly interesting concept for me. Maybe before I get further, I should clarify that a lot of my opinion is in general about Love Is Blind as a show, rather than specifically season 2. Anyway, the series has an interesting hypothesis - will people who connected deeply with no outside noise be able to take that into the real world?

This is great, because we see people who cannot see who they are talking to. This means they base their entire opinion on the personal conversation. Looks are out of the question and you could say this is perfect - they simply tune out all the noise and get to know the real person on the other side, right?

No.
They really don't. I know that at first glance it may seem that way, but the whole premise of the show just does not hold, at least in my opinion. You do not get to know the other person at all - you learn about them whatever THEY DECIDE to let you learn. It is nearly no different than texting someone online; only here at least you can hear the tone and have less time to think through what you're going to say.

There are so many situations where you learn to know another person - the way they act in social situations is probably the biggest one. You will often be surrounded by other people when you're together and it isn't even about jealousy - which, spoiler alert, is a thing in this show. Your opinion of someone can change greatly when you see how they act around others - their self-confidence, their charm, their attitude.

To be honest, I also believe looks are quite important - being physically attracted to the person you're dating is a great thing! Not the most important one, but in many ways it can slightly improve the relationship for sure!

Anyway, the show itself is actually pretty good in the first part. The conversations in the pods make the viewer form an opinion on the participants and let you know them fairly well. They are focused on the people who actually end up as couples, so it does sort of ruin the surprise of who ends up with who - but it also means that it is fairly easy to follow, as you don't have to remember all 20-30 people who are in the show. That said, I'd love to hear some of the conversations of those who didn't make it through!

The moment we get out of the pods and go to the holiday in Cancun and later regular life, it gets to the point when they really learn who the other person is - with all their baggage, their family, etc. This causes a lot of trouble and can be interesting; but it also just feels like any other reality show, with a lot of seemingly unnecessary drama, hilarious lack of communication and the realization that the other person is just way different than you'd expect after talking to them in the pods.

I personally really enjoyed watching the episodes in the pods - they were quite fun, there was a lot of interesting conversations and you could really start liking or disliking some of the cast. Sadly, later there was just a lot of cringe and drama that made me dread watching the second half of the series. This is not really surprising though - that is the reality of relationships made through this kind of a closed-off environment. I guess in that way, the show does reach its goal of finding out what happens when you make people propose after a few weeks of knowing each other, with no additional information outside of what they tell you.

Closing Words

Overall, my feelings are quite ambivalent. The pod episodes are fun to watch, while the rest felt a bit unbearable to me - but I do have a low drama and cringe tolerance, I like it when things are done in a reasonable way. If you like reality shows and wanna see something a little different, definitely give this a watch - but you can honestly just stop after the pods and you won't miss anything too interesting!