What a turn-on! TV’s hot summer
From masked matchmaking to the full-frontal filth-fest of Sex/Life, dating is back — on the telly at least. As Sexy Beasts hits Netflix, Abha Shah wonders why we just can’t get enough of seriously OTT shows
WOULD you date a man dressed as a beaver? What about if you were also in disguise, wearing a devil mask because you were fed up of being judged on your looks? This is not a fever dream but a hotly anticipated Netflix dating show called Sexy Beasts that landed on Wednesday and is already a talking point. In a cross between Blind Date and The Masked Singer, hopefuls are disguised in animalistic Hollywood-grade prosthetics before attempting to woo each other. Is this really what is meant by the summer of love?
It is narrated by Rob Delaney and the idea is to challenge the “looks first” concept. The contestants are so saccharine in their quest for true love you’ll likely develop toothache during the 25 minute-ish episodes.
Once made-up, the winking, preening and parting shots from bad losers (“your loss,” sulks a rebuffed mouse) are at best uncomfortable; at worst, excruciating. Ultimately you won’t care who ends up being picked, you just want to see the beauty under the beast. Come for the prosthetics, stay for the big reveal.
It’s monstrously addictive and just one of the dating shows that are dominating TV schedules, joining Love Island, Too Hot to Handle (a chaste but sexual tension fuelled take on Love Island where beautiful people aren’t even allowed to touch), Sex/Life (a full-frontal filth fest that makes Normal People look like CBeebies) and Naked Attraction.
There is enough red-hot action and burning embarrassment to make your screen melt and we are lapping it up:
Too Hot to Handle [THTH] was watched by 51 million global viewers in its first season, while the Love Island premiere had 4.6 million tuned in.
So why are these shows so popular? Creator and executive producer of Sexy Beasts Simon Welton says the draw is all about the contrast with our lives: “We’re living in what are still slightly dark times, so a little bit of joyful escapism is no bad thing”. In other words,
those who aren’t having sex because the pandemic put dating on hold, are watching it.
“Everyone loves love,” says Satema Tarawally, an assistant producer on shows including 24 Hours in A&E and co-founder of Sassy Jam Productions. “We like to live vicariously through others; dating shows are a way to do it”.
It helps that there’s something undeniably watchable about hot young things glistening in the sun (for a 16 to 34-year-old audience, at least). But it goes deeper than that. The course of true love never did run smooth. And good job too, because my goodness does it make great telly when relationships hit the rocks.
The next dating show to look out for is Naked Attraction Hotel. It is a spin-off from Naked Attraction, and will see candidates chose their date based on their unclothed body then go away with them as well as the shortlist, so there’s a back-up waiting in the wings should the first date not work out. Savage.
It’s all a long way from Cilla Black-era Blind Date, ITV’s family-friendly dating game show which ran for 18 years. But the same old was never going to last. Dating shows have got bigger, bolder, and more bonkers as we tuned in to witness Cupid’s arrow strike — or, better still, gawp at the nuclear fallout when it didn’t.
Now E4 is even setting dates in an animated world. It has just launched Blind Love on First Date Island on its YouTube channel. Each episode uses the audio of real couples on a blind phone date, and sets it in a surreal animated world, narrated by Drag Race UK’s Bimini Bon Boulash. But the most eye-popping thing on telly right now? Look no further than Sex/Life. OK it’s a drama, not a reality show, but it has got people breaking the internet googling whether main character Brad Simon (Adam Demos) really is that wellendowed (spoiler: he is). It is unashamedly trashy and a new frontier for TV.
Neck and neck with Sex/Life, it’s Naked Attraction, where full-frontal nudity steals the spotlight. It’s proven so popular, there are now more than eight overseas adaptations, says the show’s executive producer Darrell Olsen. The contestants — whose friends, families and loose acquaintances presumably don’t own a TV set between them — are put on podiums and revealed from the genitals up under terrifically unforgiving studio lighting, while we squeal behind our hands at home. The extreme zooms are enough to have you signing a celibacy agreement. But, if you can get beyond the flapping, twerking and windmilling (Google at your peril), one can commend the show for pushing boundaries.
Naked Attraction contestants are among the most inclusive of the lot. Olsen says: “We were the first dating show to feature a polyamorous couple, a transgender man who was mid-transition, and the first celebrity to get naked on a dating show [TV personality Lauren Harries].” Olsen is certain that these shows aren’t going away: “We’ll see dating shows endure for many years to come because, however else the world changes, people will always be fascinated by love and relationships”. Play on, Cupid — we’re watching.
It helps that there’s something undeniably watchable about hot young things in the sun
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