Love Island, an objectively perfect British reality show with roughly 55 episodes per season, is coming to America.
Per Deadline, CBS won the U.S. rights to the show and will be producing a full series for an American audience—which is fine, but you know, America already has access to Love Island, because all four seasons are available on Hulu and are perfect just the way they are. The U.S. expansion for the franchise is certainly not the first—there are versions in Australia and Germany, as well as Scandinavia—but I wonder what magic will be lost in translation when this makes it across the pond to the U.S.
Much like Bachelor in Paradise, Love Island throws strangers together to compete for a cash prize, which they win by coupling up with a castmate. Unlike Bachelor in Paradise, Love Island airs every day of the week in the U.K., with a clips show on Saturdays, making for six full days of the most pleasantly mind-numbing content you will ever encounter. There are challenges to break up the monotony of existing on a villa in Mallorca but not really being able to leave; one episode I watched recently featured the girls of Love Island smushing watermelons with their butts while the boys watched. Is this great television? No! But it’s got heart in a way that an American remake will certainly lack and I, for one, am fearful for what is to come.