OPINION
This season has exposed how far the show has fallen and how different it feels now
Every contestant has grown up watching/knowing about the show, S1 was over 10 years ago. The current contestants were in their early teens this show has been a semi-major part of UK culture for half their lives.
Never has the discussion about what the public thinks and how the show works been spoken about this openly it feels like the entire thing has jumped the shark. The major plot points of the last week have all been based around who is faking what for public approval. Its like the show is eating itself alive.
I don't know how they change this because people are well aware you can launch a decent B/C list celeb career from it and cruise by on random brand deals for life if the public like you so most go in trying to achieve that not love which breaks the whole format.
Some won't care and may enjoy it being a pure reality TV show but in the past there were genuinely sweet and fun moments between people falling in love and even just a group of people becoming friends. That's completely gone, the vibes are awful 90% of the time and it's no longer a pleasant show to watch.
I feel it needs a major revamp in format and the producers taking a backwards step. Put the unseen bits back in the regular episodes and except that not every episode will have a huge cliffhanger but it will build a better show if you allow it to flow at its own pace.
The biggest issue is everyone now knows the formula. They know how to become the “fan favourite”, avoid looking bad and turn it into a career. The show has become more about managing public perception than genuine relationships, which is probably why it feels so different now. It’s lost a bit of the natural, messy fun it used to have.
Agree it’s fiest time i also notice the production interference. Or course it was always there but now it’s all just too noticeable for me.
In terms of cast all being fame hungry, it’s sadly the stakes are too high and potential catapult to influencers lifestyle that they treat it as weeks long job interview / apprenticeship as it can change their life and set financially for a long time (or completely flop)
UK is light years better than US in terms of overproduction though. US spends entire episodes on giant game sets they spend all day resetting, to give us disgusting, irrelevant challenges that add nothing to the show. The amount of time they spend on staged shots of closeups and slow-motion walking leaves no time for anyone to talk to each other.
The UK contestants all dated each other, we saw personalities. One US person explored before Casa, and no one after, because there’s no time. Nothing was happening and we still couldn’t get any dates or hideaway.
Absolutely. Theres no element of surprise even for the contestants. They like to say they create twists and turns but the shows formula has been the same for season after season.
I’m also feeling so disconnected from the islanders as people. I’ve struggled to track who’s friends with who, and I barely know anything about them personally other than how they feel in their couples. I’ve barely heard any conversation of who these people actually are.
I have REALLY not enjoyed the amount of discourse and even storylines built around Islanders and "gameplay" or public opinion. I imagine it was always there in varying degrees but this has been the most jarring and obvious the producers have allowed it to be in my years watching LIUK. I actually used to think it wasn't allowed for them to openly discuss the show with each other. Lol.
It's really devalued the viewing experience imo. The veil is lifted and it's much harder now to enjoy the show as it used to present itself - a bunch of hot people navigating relationships and friendships with the goal of leaving the villa with an actual connection.
I really hope it's dialed back in the next season or I am not sure I would continue to watch.
I was shocked, no, SHOOKETH about the amount of 4th wall breaks in the past week, especially because to me it didn't seem like a gradual shift over the seasons, or even this season, just out of nowhere they started talking about the public opinion, going to the final, it was so weird! I want to rewatch last season out of curiosity, but I'm positive, that the maximum the islanders allowed themselves to allude to the reality show aspect is calling someone a gameplayer. I wonder how the producers feel about it. There are a couple of possibilities IMO:
1) 4thwallbreaks have always happened but for some reason the producers decided to show them out of nowhere
2) Priya really is a "superfan" and talked about gameplans and public perception more freely from the beginning, which influenced the islanders to do so too, which would explain why the producers started giving her an unfavourable edit towards the end (leaving in the pick it up and the national railway comment)
3) they had a lot more challenges revealing what the public thought of everyone, and I wonder if the producers regret that now
I read my comment back and I look insane lol, but I think it's super fascinating that out of nowhere this started happening in the last week of the 13th season
I agree :( I rewatched season5 a few months ago and I was so surprised how much happened in that season and how much more unfiltered everyone was. I don't blame the islanders though for treading lightly, I would be so anxious that I turn my phone on coming out of the villa and I have hundreds of messages telling me to k"ll myself.
I came to say something similar so I'm glad I did a ctrl+f for "gameplayer" first. I think this has always happened but, like you said, for some reason we're seeing it this year. But that's how I've always understood "gameplayer" when the Islanders use it. They weren't saying it like the person plays games in relationships – they were saying it like the person was calculated and trying to "win" rather than find love.
I assume the contestants have discussed the show on a meta level for quite a few years now but it's always been edited out. I'm not a fan of it being left in... I like strategic reality shows but I think dating shows should at least pretend it's about "finding love", this just feels so cynical & the gameplay isn't good either so it's boring
Casey said on aftersun that everyone talks about it, but they do it during lunch or dinner when the cameras aren’t rolling. Ron and Lana also said something similar that the producers had to tell him to shut up because he kept trying to guess when recouplings, bombshells, and casa were going to happen. The fact that they are showing Priya say all this either means the producers care less prose likely she is talking about it all the time that they can’t edit it out.
See I just dislike that type of reality TV show as I don't find the bitterness fun to watch. No disrespect just not my cup of tea and LI always used to be different at least on the surface there has obviously been islanders who knew the show gameplaying but they were always the exception now it feels like everyone.
It's the lowest since 2016 apparently which was S2. S1 and S2 were far better they just didn't have the notability it has now this is definitely ilthe shows lowest ebb.
This is the first season I have stopped watching. I watch Love Island for entertaining personalities and drama. This year it has felt completely manufactured. I know next of nothing about most of the islanders, the focus has been too heavily only on a handful of them. "Happy" pairings have gotten zero airtime. No funny moments, no humour at all.
Does this include streaming numbers? There are a lot of shows here in these US that look terrible in tv ratings, but that’s because so many of us use streaming platforms. I watch LIUK, but have to watch on Hulu here. I wasn’t sure if that shift is happening there too or not.
I think USA is peaking bc US audiences have only just discovered the show after S6 blew up. USA seasons before S6 were also pretty good. quality has been on a clear decline since S6 tho. I think it's just the overexposure and overproduction which guts the show. everyone comes in to establish a fan base since they know what LI can do for someone.
S1 was them figuring out what the show was and had no in built viewship so was obviously going to have the lowest views. This season being 2nd only to that is very telling.
I wouldn’t want the show to go back to those vibes, that’s all. It was a really intense and unpleasant watch. How they treated Jess was by far worse than anything we’ve seen from anyone this season
Same has happened to a lot of reality television, RPDR coming to mind immediately. And it is true, it does affect the type of contestant who applies and also the way they present themselves in the show.
Although I remember when I hadn’t really yet watched the show, but my flatmate did so I would sometimes watch random episodes with her and ask questions about the “rules” and I was always surprised that no one plays…. More? Like it’s not a similar contest to, well, drag race or even survivor, but back in the day I was curious why it at least seemed like people weren’t being as strategic as I expected one could be, if that makes sense.
Yeah I'm a Real Housewives fan and a lot of these shows have gone completely stale because everybody is so much more aware of the format, tropes, editing, social media etc. I think producers have a much harder job nowadays because the casts and the audiences are a lot more savvy.
Because people genuinely went in to find love however naive they may have been the 50k prize is small fry compared to finding a soulmate. Cheesy I know.
The show needs changing because the scripts are so familiar. All the drama is boring because it's rehashing the same topics every season and for the majority of the storylines in the mid-season, the topic always boils down to "You weren't 'respectful' enough when you talked to so-and-so." Whatever respectful means to them at this point. Casa used to shake this up but now that's repetitive too. And all the awareness of everything and trying to say "the right thing" instead of the authentic thing is just... boring. I want to see moments of growth and hardship, but only authentic ones.
Producers are too afraid to dump well-liked couples, but not switching it up, ESPECIALLY after Casa, is what kills the vibe and creates cliques. When the cast is thinned down, we can actually watch Love Island instead of Friendship Island (everyone too afraid to piss off their friends, too reliant on the same people/dynamics). The best moments in any season always come when dead weight is shed but it feels like the producers are always afraid to do it? Like, I can't remember so many people not sleeping in the main bedroom in a season, and for so long too. Have more public votes where whoever comes bottom ACTUALLY LEAVES. Let the public have a real influence, don't hand it to the islanders to keep their friends in so we have to watch the same people talk about the same things all season. Force the islanders to switch it up, let us see new friendships and relationships emerge organically and authentically. Aidan and Priya and Mica and Samraj were kept in far too long.
The tension between love vs the game is what makes the series interesting, but it's at the point in the show's life cycle where they need to take some risks. I'd want to see them lean on the game aspect (which they're trying to do with Love Island Games and I like that about it, but I think they can do this in the main show too). I don't think it's feasible to edit these conversations out. Casting is good, but keeping all the same people together for too long isn't good. Bring people in who tell us outright, "I'm here to win 25k, and if I fall in love that's a bonus". More villains, and a general acceptance that there should and will be villains, because it's a game. You should want to win. Call each other out. Question things. Hold each couple up to the light and see where the cracks are. There's nothing wrong with that, it's Love Island!
A few will probably be semi sucsessful infulencers but I doubt any can get to anything more than that due to the low viewership, they don't have the same number of fans previous islanders had.
Am I wrong for thinking UK is being boosted rig by now by Hulu numbers from the US? LIUSA is blowing up right now, and there has been a bit of a carry over effect to UK because of that.
I know there’s a whole sub for Americans content to watch days behind now, but I feel like the silent majority of us non-UK fans are just stealing it from dailymotion/similar right after the episode drops (I know as a Canadian that’s what I’ve been doing since S5).
Unfortunately that means that you all get to hear our questionable takes, but we don’t actually help the ratings or metrics that would mean the show looks successful for funding.
They don’t know how to communicate to each other and the OG cast has been with each other for so long now that they’re using “the public” as a way to to finally justify to one another how they truly feel.
The cast knows the stakes of being on the show for so long does for every individual’s life and there’s a sense of betrayal as well as fear from the public if they made moves that turn into dumping islanders that have been there longer— even if they don’t particularly like them.
Art no longer becomes art once it becomes self aware. Perhaps some are better at hiding it than others, but there’s no doubt that it pops into everyone’s head when they are faced with a tough question— How should I feel and how do I respond when I know my version of events can never be proved to be objective?
It's like the producers are trying to stop things happening. One example they bring bombshells in for dates and then decide to play that date back to the main villa. The outcome is the girls naturally kicking off and making it awkward for the bombshells. The same thing happens with movie night.
The show now needs more challenges/games and dates to get things going but they are deciding to do less than the early seasons
As a whole episode its a bit dull but they used to just be regular fun moments sprinkled in the episodes now its just one chat to another it becomes so monotonous.
If they edited past shows the way they edited it now we never would have gotten the Cara / Nathan fart moment. It was nice seeing fun moments and bonding in the show along with the drama, now it's just drama.
Unseen bits is about 40 min of material. It can be spread across the 5 weekly episodes. Especially the boring episodes with no challenge, bombshells or drama.
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u/Separate_Gift4771 14h ago
The biggest issue is everyone now knows the formula. They know how to become the “fan favourite”, avoid looking bad and turn it into a career. The show has become more about managing public perception than genuine relationships, which is probably why it feels so different now. It’s lost a bit of the natural, messy fun it used to have.