Ok, so I am the perfect audience for Love Island. I even got a Love Island style bottle and a Love Island themed card from work for my birthday – the obsession is real. But this season, well, I didn’t even watch the finale (I know – mad!)

So this season of Love Island is much like all the others where singles go to a villa and try to find love. But my issue with this season was the controversies surrounding it. Of course reality TV is never truly real – it’d be far too boring, but the amount of innacuries and random moments in this show was just too much.

Firstly there were people talking on some steps and they would jump from one step to another in between shots, a glass of wine on the table would disappear and reappear at random even though the conversation was shown to be flowing perfectly normally. Then there was the kiss between Jack and Georgia which was clearly filmed twice and thus caused a lot of issues within the villa itself between the contestants but the producers and Caroline Flack couldn’t address it.

But the nail in the coffin for me was how they completely edited out one of the couple’s romance where they even had moments in the hideaway (the room everyone has sex in basically (is that not good enough for TV?!)) and because of this their time in the villa was short lived. Instead we had to listen to Georgia rattle on about how she is loyal for the millionth time.

I thought this was very twisted and the way certain scenes are edited and shown too made some couples more prominent and likeable than others. Yes Megan stole Wes from Laura and that is a terrible thing to do but then there relationship blossomed and she came out of her shell yet the audience still hated her because of how she had been portrayed. If Samira and Frankie got more screen time I’m sure us as audience members would have enjoyed them a lot more and people like Alex who coasted through the villa for far too long would’ve left instead.

And then there’s the fact that there were so many new faces come in and out of the villa that really added nothing to the storyline that is was quite hard to really connect with any of them. It’s a shame as usually Love Island is a good terrible watch. It takes over your life and you can’t wait to see what drama happens next time. But this season there was very little drama, far too many actual relationships forming which obviously could not be broken up too easily, and too many conspiracies about what the audience was really being shown.

I think producers worry so much these days about getting views and keeping people interested that they lose their way and why we as audience members tuned in, in the first place. It’s the old underdog story where you latch onto another human being because you like or are intrigued by them and follow their story with all the highs and lows. This season was far too many highs and the drama that was clearly faked and made up by the producers was just too obvious.

Give me good old Truman Show, not some half-attempt that feels anything but reality.

What did you think of Love Island 2018?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding