Is Love Blind... or Just Dumb? (Dating in the Dark)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Dating in the Dark
Date:	26/09/09 (197 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy Watching, Quite Entertaining & Unusual Concept.

Disadvantages: A Little Daft & Predictable.

Every time I think that reality television shows have gone as far as they can go by creating the most outrageous or the most unusual show they always come up with something to beat it. Now I'll watch anything going much to my boyfriend's complete horror as I normally force him to watch it to, so you can imagine how horrified he was when I suggested we watch this new show. The title alone was enough for him to dismiss it as being absolute rubbish! Yet I wasn't dismayed and managed to convince him to watch this new series that Living TV has come up with... a unique idea known now as Dating in the Dark

Dating in the Dark began back at the start of September and is screened on Living TV on a Wednesday evening at 9pm. The producers at Living wanted to create something new, something different to your typical blind dating and speed dating television shows that have been doing the rounds over the past decade or so. They wanted a new show that would put a completely new spin on the concept of blind dating and you can't get much blinder than complete darkness! There is a little bit of scientific theory behind the show as well, it claims to test out the long argued point of whether or not beauty is only skin deep.

The Idea

Each week we meet six new contestants who are all looking for some love in their lives. The three guys and the three girls move into completely separate areas of the Dating in the Dark house to ensure they don't have even the slightest opportunity to see what the members of the other sex look like. They're kept completely apart for almost the whole duration of the show except for a couple of date meetings which are all held in a special dark room that really is pitch black. The viewers can follow the individuals as they meet up with members of the other sex on various dates to see if love will blossom... in the dark!

Each show has the same set up spread over an hour, minus three commercial breaks meaning the show's duration is probably closer to forty five minutes than an hour. First we meet all the contestants before they all get to meet each other in the dark room during the group meeting. Following this each contestant has to remove his or her top to be sent to the opposite sex's living quarters to allow them to have a sniff of each other's pheromones. After this each contestant can choose one member of the opposite sex, based on scent and voice alone, to invite on a date which obviously occur in the dark room again.

After the first date the contestants will then have the chance to see who they're most compatible with before there is a second round of dating which, once again, is in the dark. The third round of dating then takes place where the contestants can choose who they meet for the third time in the dark, either their original choice, their compatibility match, or the third guy who they've not yet had a date with. The final stage of the process is where the contestants, along with the help of a sketch artist, can sketch the person they've had the most dates with. These then get set to the corresponding person to see the accuracy.

The final stage of the dating process is where each contestant gets to choose one person to see in the dark, they'll be illuminated for just fifteen seconds and true reactions are finally revealed. In a rather brutal and harsh ending to the show the contestants must decide whether they want to date the person they've just seen or whether they want to run like hell through the door. If they want to go ahead and date the person then they turn up in a given room and wait for their date to enter... or if their date decides not to come they also have a lovely view of them exiting the house and running in the opposite direction!

The Science

The show aims to explore how important aesthetic attraction really is when it comes to finding your soul mate by asking the much argued question - do looks really matter? The whole premise of the show is that the contestants will get to know someone in the dark and presumably develop an attraction to them, based on their personality alone. The notion of looks in determining a successful relationship has been a long debated topic, some people would argue that looks don't matter whilst other people would argue that looks are paramount. The show sets out to prove that looks aren't important... but are they?

Let's face it, in the society we live in looks do count. Whether you're talking about the best person for a job or someone you'd want to have a relationship with you're taking into account their looks. No matter how much some of my friends protest that they're not shallow and that looks don't matter, invariably they always will matter. You put a really good looking guy in a dark room with, for want of a better way to say it, a really ugly girl and no matter how well they get on he won't want to be seen with her on his arm in his local. Yet this show sets out to prove me wrong, and that alone was enough to make me watch it.

My Opinion

I've watched two episodes of this show and have actually quite enjoyed it, but probably for the wrong reasons really. All the contestants so far have been reasonably attractive but nothing to warrant heads to pivot or anything like that. At first that would seem to almost blunt the drama as they're all fairly decent looking it's not really testing the looks don't matter hypothesis out. However what really gets this show going is the big build up to the humiliation at the end of the show as to whether or not the person they've chosen will join them or will be seen running down the path to the awaiting car in horror!

The rest of the show is fairly simple really; the dates are the main part of the show although they only feature each date for about a minute and show only a few highlights. Without your typical alcohol induced bitching and flirting sessions it would appear that dark would be better substituted for dull really. The only freaky bit is where they have to give their top to the other sex; I'm not sure what the sniffing lark is about! The politics of who ends up with who is rather obviously engineered along the way with the compatibility match which is apparently carried out by experts... the producers then?

The only thing I'd like to see with this show is for it either to be on longer every week or for it to be spread over two episodes. The main thing with a reality show that's only on for about forty five minutes each week is that you don't really get to know the contestants in that you don't really build up any feelings towards them. The main thing with reality shows that gets viewers hooked is if they really like or dislike a character, they'll keep watching it. Yet with this show the viewers are never really given the option to get addicted as such as it's only on for such a short amount of time and the contestants are never interviewed.

However this show does provide for some easy watching and some light relief in the form of the possible humiliation at the end of each show. If you've not seen it already then you have plenty of time to catch an episode over the coming weeks. On the other hand if you don't manage to catch an episode then you're not really missing out on anything either. To conclude, the show does answer a valuable question which will no doubt benefit society immensely and help create world piece too, that question being is love blind? The answer is clearly no but it does appear that it may well be a little dumb!

Thanks for reading.

Summary: A new reality show which sees contestants dating in the dark.