There’s no contrived drama, though drama organically emerges.
There are no talking-head interviews spelling out motivations you just have to read faces and cues. The dates are seamlessly edited together in a way that almost feels like a short story. The show’s first season attracted praise from critics because of the way it actually brought romance back to the genre, while also staying true to the swipe-for-next-prospect feel of current dating.īoth seasons consist of six bingeable episodes, in each of which a protagonist goes on five dates. The reality show premiered on Netflix last year, and the second season just came out last weekend. Shows like The Bachelor or Love Is Blind, for instance, remain obsessed with the idea of marriage and long-term commitment, caught up in TV tropes about forever love and The One that aren’t easy to depict in original or convincing ways.īut then there is the quietly subversive Dating Around. Instead, somehow, the genre has just leaned back into the conventional and retro. One would think that these shifts would prompt reality dating shows to organically update themselves for the times. And daters often google each other and check out Instagrams before meeting up. Setting up a dating profile requires curating and selling yourself like a brand or a reality TV character. As social media and apps have taken over dating, the whole process has become more and more mediated.
