So… Love Island (US). Hm.
- The girls are moderately better looking.
- The boys are moderately better looking.
- The girls dress a little less trashy.
- The boys dress a lot less douchey. (The difference is pretty noticeable.)
- What fucking genius at CBS looked at Mallorca and thought, “Y’know how we could improve this? Put the villa in Fiji!” Predictably, Day One: torrential downpour.
- The rain has already had an impact on how the show works. The UK cast stays clumped together next to the pool or fire-pit most of the day, but the rain drives the US cast indoors and encourages them to pair off and squirrel themselves away in various corners of the villa. I’m honestly just waiting for one of these idiots to say “alliance”.
- …particularly because, in oh-so-American fashion, CBS has jacked up the prize money. Going from the UK’s ~$65,000 prize to $100,000 means people have a lot of extra incentive to actively game-ify their interactions.
- I don’t know anything about the presumably prominent designer they hired to create the look of the Hideaway, but it’s clear no one has ever told that motherfucker “no”. It’s an eye-boggling, cluttered mess that sits in stark contrast with the villa’s overall aesthetic and seems completely unsuited to encouraging horny twentysomethings to “do bits”.
- For the record, I insist that the US cast adopt “doing bits” as the default euphemism for dry-humping and finger-banging under a blanket. It is perfect.
- The barefoot drummer from Sacramento is just as off-putting as that description makes him sound. He might even be a nice kid, and I still hate him. Put some fucking socks on and stop being so pointedly laid-back, dude.
- Within the first eight minutes, someone sincerely praised God. Which is completely unremarkable for an American show, but really stands out in comparison to the UK original.
- …but not as much as the way the kids speak in general. I mean, besides the to-be-expected elimination of the UK show’s omnipresent “fuck”s, it’s striking that the UK cast tends to speak in more complicated, flowing sentences. On a show where “reality” is rehearsed and often reshot, the difference shouldn’t be so stark.
Verdict: way too early to tell if this is gonna work. Caro’s a nutjob and Kyra is fairly hot, so at least I’m not bored.