Love Island
Sunday-Friday, ITV2
(Choose your own stars: I’ve done all the thinking about this show I’m going to do)
Love Island: a beginners’ guide, as offered by my niece (age 23), who watches nightly and kindly talked me through Monday’s episode, the first I have ever watched. I was explained the set-up – essentially, super-sexy people on a sunny island hook up or go home (I think) – and I was as ready as I’ll ever be.
Me: Dani is crying. Poor Dani. Why are they making her so unhappy? My Niece: For the drama
Me: How long is this?
My Niece: It’s a special extended episode.
Me: Oh, FFS.
MN. They’ve split the contestants. The boys are in a new place, Casa Amor, with six new girls, and the girls are in the same villa with six new boys. A few of them have already cheated. Josh, who was with Georgia, has gone into Casa Amor and has hooked up with a new girl, Caz. Georgia has been mugged off.
Me: Mugged off?
MN: Snaked. And Dani’s devastated because she’s with Jack and saw his ex move into Casa Amor.
Me: Dani is crying. Poor Dani. Why are they making her so unhappy?
MN: For the drama.
Me: She doesn’t understand she’s being manipulated?
MN: No. See him? That’s Alex. He’s an A&E doctor.
Me: Why would he want to be on Love Island rather than saving lives?
MN: Because doctors can be morons too.
Me: Good life lesson. Christ, that sunburn.
MN: Exactly. There’s a Twitter feed begging him to stay inside. He’s 90 per cent milk. Bland. People like him, but then they get to know him and it’s ‘no’. Wes is about to be mugged off because Laura has gone off with someone else.
Me: Has anyone had sex yet?
MN: Megan and Eyal, Wes and Laura, and there’s the Dobits Society.
Me: Can anyone join?
MN: Yes, if you don’t go the whole way and just do bits.
Me: I’m so bored already. Can I start the Dobebored Society?
MN: You’re doing so well. Hang on in there, Aunt.
Break for the ads, sigh:
Me: I hate watching telly in real time because of the ads. Must a woman have an orgasm every time she eats yoghurt?
MN: And why is it always a low-fat yoghurt? What does a woman have to do to deserve a full-fat yoghurt?
Me: So we can agree on this, at least.
MN: We can.
Then back to the show, where Dani is now beside herself. ‘I love Jack, but now I’m thinking, does he think his ex is fit?’ And Georgia is beside herself. ‘I love Josh. I think we have a future.’ Alex asks Grace what she looks for in a man. ‘He must be taller than me and have nice teeth.’ She does not say ‘and use Factor 50’, which has to be a missed opportunity.
ME: Why do you care about any of this?
MN: I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the time I put in. It’s six hours a week
Me: You could read Homer’s The Odyssey for six hours a week and get invested in that?
MN: I want them to find love.
ME: Why do they all look like Barbie and Ken dolls?
MN: ‘Because they wouldn’t get on the show otherwise. Now they all have to decide if they want to stay with their new partners or go back to their old ones. This re-coupling is huge. Huge.
Another ad break filled with women doing random sexualised stuff, then it’s Josh saying he feels bad about Georgia – ‘I don’t want to break her little heart’ – and Caroline Flack coming on board to say who is now with who. Dani and Jack are reunited but Georgia has been ‘mugged off’ by Josh and is shattered.
Me: Oh God, poor Georgia
MN: See, you care!
Me: Not really. I just hope that on some level she understands what’s happening, that reality TV is not reality. Didn’t a former contestant commit suicide recently?
MN: I don’t think it was suicide.
Me: I’ll check later.*
MN: Same time, same place, tomorrow night?
Me: No.
(Next week, back to normal when we will be discussing the physics of Poldark Time and why Emma can be away for a year while baby Sarah – poor baby Sarah – stays a newborn. Interesting.)
* It was.
