Nick Lachey, left, and Vanessa Lachey arriving for the season four reunion of lLove is Blind at Sunset Bronson Studios in Los Angeles on April 16, 2023.ADAM ROSE/The Associated Press
It’s Pollyanna to believe a dating show can result in true love. But when Netflix debuted Love Is Blind in the middle of the pandemic, weren’t we all looking for human connection? Wasn’t there something idyllic about the idea of falling in love, sight unseen?
The premise of Love Is Blind is simple enough. Over four weeks, men and women “date” from opposite sides of a wall while lounging in sleek production pods and drinking from metallic chalices. Should they chose, couples get engaged, see each other for the first time and go on a romantic vacation where they discover if their emotional connection is also a physical one.
Then they return to “reality” to see how they’d fit as a couple. They live in swanky apartments and meet each other’s families and friends. As they plan a wedding, they also discuss values and work arrangements. It culminates in a trip to the altar, where they either say “I do” or walk away from each other forever.
It was the right idea at the right time, and it hit big. Over five years, the series has become a Top 10 staple for the streaming service. It’s spawned international versions in Brazil, Germany, France, Argentina and several other countries. Rumours of a Love Is Blind Canada continue to swirl, but even though applications are open to Canadians generally, Netflix has yet to confirm a True North version.
Meanwhile, seven seasons of the American iteration have resulted in 13 marriages, 10 of which are still thriving. To compare, only one man in 29 seasons of The Bachelor married his final pick, and only five women married theirs in 21 seasons of The Bachelorette, which is now on pause for the summer 2025 season. It felt like the Love is Blind “experiment” had more potential than most.
But that’s just it. What started out as an experiment has devolved into typical trash TV and it’s tough to be as optimistic about the show’s intentions as hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey or the fresh-faced contestants entering the pods for Season 8 this Valentine’s Day.
The show has always had the traditional reality TV problems. The pressure cooker timeline, the choice to cast good-looking individuals and the lack of queer couples are industry-wide issues. However, Love Is Blind’s shady side has grown even darker in recent years. Multiple contestants have alleged abuse and oppressive contracts. There have been stories and lawsuits of underpay, not enough food, too much alcohol, imprisonment and abuse by fellow contestants.
Season 5 dater Renee Poche, whose participation with then-fiancé Carter Wall was cut (not all engaged couples wind up with screen time), has spoken publicly about her negative experience.
Early last year, she alleged that after she shared her misgivings about her partner with production, she was told she would face legal action if she dropped out of the show or ended the engagement. Her story is notable because production company Delirium TV filed a US$4-million lawsuit against her for purportedly violating her non-disclosure agreement. That arbitration continues to take place behind closed doors.
Delirium and producing partner Kinetic Content aren’t the only companies that don’t want the public to know how the sausage is made, which is why these restrictive NDAs exist in the first place. But, it also wasn’t lost on viewers that after the lawsuits appeared, Love Is Blind began showing the contestants eating more and drinking less.
Over the seasons, the series has made several other onscreen tweaks to up the drama while jeopardizing its own experiment. After the public turned on Season 1 contestant Jessica Batten for trying to break up Amber Pike and Matt Barnett (not to mention sharing her wine with her dog), “villains” became another Love Is Blind staple. Who didn’t react to Deepti Vempati choosing herself in the Season 2 finale after weeks of viewers watching her fiancé, Shake Chatterjee, talk badly about her looks?
That wasn’t just one of the most epic moments of the series: It proved the show’s power. Vempati began raking it in as an influencer, while Chatterjee was asked to participate in E!’s inaugural reality experiment, House of Villains. In that moment, it was clear the show could never return to its earnest roots.
Sure, we’ve exhausted the conversation about those who go on these series “for the right reasons.” But Love Is Blind seems to revel in editing these individuals, particularly when exes or supposed significant others slide into fellow contestants’ DMs, or when someone from the pods has lingering feelings for one of the newly engaged participants.
The show has created “villains” like Bartise Bowden, Irina Solomonova and Uche Okoroha through those moments, despite the idea that everyone deserves love. And this is all while encouraging people to open up about their traumas and share their biggest fears and insecurities in front of millions of people.
The problem with series like these is that once you create a dramatic moment, you need to continuously outperform and out-shock to keep people talking. These moments may not have been initially manufactured, but once you see how audiences respond, the experiment can no longer be the most important part.
In Season 5, Okoroha and Lydia Velez Gonzalez admitted they had dated before entering the pods (but insisted they didn’t know about each other’s casting). They were open about it once they met, and producers knew. But they hid the information from other participants and unveiled it in the most dramatic way possible because, well, television. Producers seem to be recreating a similar moment in Season 8, as a participant in the trailer tells cameras that the reveal wasn’t the first time she’d seen her new fiancé.
It’s just one of several dramatic moments promised in the trailer, which feels counter intuitive to the once sweet show about ditching preconceived notions and embracing romantic love in its purest form.
There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but we can no longer pretend this show is just about finding successful matches. Sure, couples may actually get hitched by the season finale, but that’s just an added bonus to keep the premise alive. At the end of the day this is trash TV disguised as a gourmet meal, and we’re all racoons living our best lives.
