‘Dating Around’ is a reality show that seems real
“Dating Around,” Netflix’s latest reality show, is based on an unremarkable premise: In each episode, “one real-life single navigates five blind dates” in search of “one match worthy of a second date.”
This is the kind of conceptual void that reality-tv producers typically pad with gimmicks. They make their daters go bikini skiing or mud wrestle their romantic rivals. But on “Dating Around,” two strangers just get together for dinner and drinks, and this scenario supplies all of the necessary drama. It is the rare dating show that takes dating seriously.
That is a pleasant surprise. Previous iterations of the multiple-blind-date format — offerings such as “Next,” “Dismissed” and “Elimidate” — subsisted on canned one-liners and bitter judgments. The camera always seemed to be looking down on everyone. Even “The Bachelor,” in which each season is designed to culminate in an engagement, is a fundamentally cynical exercise.
But by lowering the stakes about as far as they can go, “Dating Around” has managed to dial up the excitement and possibility of the dreaded first-date experience.
The six episodes of “Dating Around,” which debuted last month, are named for their central singletons — Luke, Gurki, Lex, Leonard, Sarah and Mila — and the show handles them delicately, bathing them in low light and summoning close friends to introduce them via voice-over. Reality-dating shows often draw from the aesthetics of beauty contests and sports, but this one is produced like prestige television, filming dates as if they were scenes between character actors.
Reality-tv editing has a bad reputation. It is the nefarious tool that carves regular people into villains and fools. If the editing of “Dating Around” is manipulative, it is a constructive kind of interference. Its montage technique injects mystery into an otherwise rote exercise. Though our daters are often following the same lines of questioning — where are you from, what do you do, what do you want? — the edit destabilizes our perspective, so that we never know exactly who is on the other end of the conversation at any given moment. This converts the mildest of emotions into suspense: When a dater looks smitten or miffed, we hold our breath until we discover who produced the feeling.
“Dating Around” has an eye for romance, and not just because it lingers on its daters’ coy glances. It zooms in on the most optimistic moment in a relationship (you met someone you might actually like!) and cuts away before the letdown (nevermind, he’s terrible!).
Each episode ends with a shot of the single person, shown now in the bright light of day, heading out for a second date with the chosen match, whose identity is revealed at a heart-stopping final moment. And that’s it: The actual second date is not filmed. An anti-climactic reunion episode published on Youtube details the disappointment we’d encounter if we followed these relationships any further: Each one fizzled.
Although “Dating Around” might be staged, it doesn’t mean it isn’t real.