ANIMAL CHARM
Talk about a creature feature! Wild new TV show puts daters in disguise
Don’t judge a book by its cover — or by its fur and feathers.
Netflix’s wild new dating show “Sexy Beasts,” out today, hides sexy singles under pounds of makeup and prosthetics, disguising their appearances in order to test if they can make lasting connections based on personality alone.
“Someone’s [appearance is] the first thing you see. So obviously everyone just goes based on looks to start with. That’s probably where I was going wrong,” Martha, a dater disguised as a deer, told The Post. “Personality is such a big thing, it’s so important in comparison. So that’s why I thought it would be good to do the show.”
Each half-hour episode of “Sexy Beasts” features one person going on dates with three different potential love interests, who are identified by their actual first name and creature disguise, e.g., Martha the Deer or Emma the Demon. The central dater — who also dons an elaborate outfit reminiscent of “The Masked Singer” — eliminates one of their three options after the first round of dates, then chooses between the remaining two contestants after another rendezvous.
Each person is “unmasked” after their elimination, to show what they really look like.
“In this show, everyone looks as weird as possible,” comedian Rob Delaney — who narrates “Sexy Beasts” — says in the introduction. “So, could you fall in love with someone based on personality alone? And will you still feel that way when you see their real face? Welcome to the strangest blind date ever!”
Martha is a 22-year-old event planner from Southampton, England, who appears as one of the choices in the episode where Kelechi the Rooster is the central dater. Kelechi is a pharmacy student from Knoxville, Tenn., and as his name suggests, his disguise involves feathers and a comb.
Martha admitted that the animal disguises were “distracting.”
“It’s like, you’re not talking to a person, you’re talking to a rooster. You’re looking at the details in the mask, in everything . . . But we had good conversations,” she said.
Martha is 5-foot-11 and admits that her “type” is the typical “tall, dark and handsome.” Onscreen, Kelechi’s costume doesn’t hide the fact that he checks at least one of those boxes — he’s tall. But Martha said it wouldn’t have been a problem for her if he wasn’t.
“I usually go for taller guys because I like wearing heels, but I would go for someone shorter,” she said. “I kept trying to work out what he looked like . . . But we got along well, so I wasn’t too worried.”
For Emma, a 22-year-old model from New York, donning a demon disguise was liberating.
“For me personally, I gained a lot of confidence with my mask. I don’t know if that’s what the people I dated experienced as well, but I felt a lot more comfortable showing my personality,” she said. “It definitely got us at that point where we could get to know each other more deeply and talk about things we’d normally never talk about on a first or second date.”
For instance, on a normal first date sans wild makeup, she’d discuss “basic things” such as jobs and interests, but on “Sexy Beasts,” she felt comfortable talking about her relationship goals.
“What surprised me was just how fun and easy dating can be when you let your guard down,” she said.