“You’ve got a text!” And it says that its time for another summer season of Love Island.
Few shows are as talked about as this one, and whether you watch it or not, you quite literally cannot escape it. You’ll be at the office and your 50-year-old Oxford educated boss will be discussing last night’s recoupling with Linda from accounts, you’ll pop and see your poorly mate who, even though they’re bed stricken, will still be watching it religiously, or you’ll be in the supermarket dairy aisle and overhear the cashiers gossiping about the latest headline in The Sun, outing one of the islanders as secretly having a husband and three kids. You won’t be safe at home, either, not if you dare go on socials anyway – whilst this is on air, there’s memes, fan theories and hashtags flying about as rapidly as the contestant’s affections for each other. So, though our TV snobbery may make us sceptical at such blatantly ridiculous reality TV, this show is clearly onto something.
And what it’s onto is the raging hormones of its twenty-something-year-old contestants, who love nothing more than necking on with each other, then having a scrap about it afterwards. For those of you who haven’t yet sat through a season of this show, each year the ITV2 producers go about selecting the next batch of beautiful, single celeb-wannabes to take part in a summer of sex, scandal and social media. The idea is that the contestants flirt with and get to know each other, then coupling up before facing a series of challenges. Those who aren’t able to find a match get chucked off the show, and after the six to eight-week stint, the public vote for their favourite remaining couple, who win £50,000. Just enough to pay for their subsequent plastic surgeries, then.
Reality shows don’t get much better than Below Deck
Whilst us TV connoisseurs at Must obviously prefer a fine, expensive crime drama, essentially a TV version of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, compared to this Lambrini, even we, if we’re in a certain frame of mind, might find ourselves sipping a glass of the sweet (read: sickly) stuff. Because though we may resist it, this show is annoyingly entertaining. The characters on display are wild and fascinating, and the conversations they have are astonishing – we’re thinking of a recent series where the girls sat and discussed how the number 11 just has such good vibes, and the painful conversation about Brexit. Plus, the arguments they get into go down in history and make your annual Christmas break bust up look like a tiny tiff in comparison.
So, this is an official message from Team Must: go forth and “crack on” with your Love Island watching this summer, we won’t judge you. In fact, we may even join you…
First shown June 2015. You can watch the trailer for the latest season by pressing play on the show image, or by clicking here.
