Most people tend to dread Mondays and the start of a new week, but for me, they mark another exciting night where I get to watch The Bachelor. Sadly, a few weeks ago Peter’s season ended and it was announced that production for the next season of The Bachelorette would be delayed due to COVID-19. I was beginning to believe I would not be able to find any reality television shows to watch during the quarantine. However, I was ecstatic when my aunt told me about the new show on Netflix, Love is Blind.

The concept of this show is that participants would be testing the theory that love is blind. Therefore, each contestant was in a self-isolating pod and would communicate with other contestants through speakers that allowed people on each side of the pod to have conversations with each other. After the 10-day pod dating period, six couples got engaged to each other and were followed throughout the show. Once the pod period was over, couples first went on a vacation to Mexico where they had to work on building a physical attraction to each other in addition to the emotional connection. Next, they moved into apartments with each other where each couple could see what their relationships would be like in the real world.

Usually, the idea of reality dating shows makes me laugh. I never truly see the couples being able to last for more than a few months after filming ends, but I was actually surprised by some of the connections in the series. Many pairs had little to no drama throughout their experience and had great chemistry. Of course, not everyone chose to get married, but I was surprised that there were a lot of people who ended up getting engaged. Also, the show was filmed in 2018, and the reunion episode was filmed recently which meant the couples that did get married were able to stay married for more than a year. The concept of getting engaged to someone after only having ten conversations with them seems crazy to me, but it actually ended up working out for some contestants.

Despite some couples being drama-free, there was still plenty caused by other pairs that kept the episodes entertaining. Love is Blind was not scripted or staged like a lot of reality shows which meant that fights that occurred held nothing back and resulted in entertaining content. The couples faced lots of obstacles from parents, friends, or their own fears which led to some not making it to the altar. While the experiment didn’t work out for everyone, it would’ve been more boring for the viewers without some arguments in there to spice things up.

The real purpose of the series was to conduct an experiment. Even at the weddings, the officiator of the ceremony brought up in the speech that they might walk away from everything. While all the participants who fell in love said they believe love is blind in the reunion episode, I have to disagree with them. All of the individuals were physically attractive by society’s standards. Therefore, the face reveal was not shocking or disappointing for any of the contestants. I think in order to truly conduct an experiment and prove that love is blind, half of the contestants would have to be less physically attractive than the other half. This would be tricky because no participants should be seen as a joke by viewers, but it is hard to label itself a true experiment when all the contestants are attractive.

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a mindless, reality dating show. With so much craziness happening in the world today, it can be good to find a nice distraction. While everyone is stuck in their homes, I would consider this to be a binge-worthy series on Netflix.