From "The Unlikely TV Show Restoring Everyone’s Faith in Dating/Without exploitation, 'Love on the Spectrum' captures the triumphs and travails of dating. It has become one of Netflix’s most popular shows" (NYT).
From the comments over there: "[T]he reason this show is so successful is that it is one of the only, if not the only, show that truly depicts how important innocent, authentic, messy, real love is. In the show, love and finally being in partnership is a heart-opening, inspiring, special dream.... While the rest of society suffers through hollow culture of situationships, social media, p*rn, red pills, gender division, AI, this [is an] endearing alternative...."
I'm reading that this morning and blogging it because it's very close to how I answered, last night, when Meade asked me why I watched this show.
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32 comments:
…I’m going to risk straying early but that’s a compelling review that captures a level of programming desperation everyone’s feeling right now. Quality viewing is spread so thin over too many platforms, like there’s an FCC requirement to show only one palatable movie or series. Australian Open viewers got mugged by ESPN a few months ago so now Amazon and NBC are emulating.
TV viewers just want to feel loved…
It's dear, sweet and heartwarming. It's a relief to be able to root for pretty much everyone who has screen time.
It horrifying to think that old time TV "Dating Game" style shows represent a huge cultural step up from the plastic social media interactions of today. But they surely do...
We love this show! As michaele aside, it is so fun to root for everyone. There are no artificial villains and there is no guile. Just a straight-up earnest desire for connection. I think seeing some of them persevere through the awkwardness is a great normalizer of how actually awkward it is to date.
There’s a relativism to what’s ‘good’ on TV…
…it’s what’s good atm…
The Althouse-Meade love affair and marriage is sweet and inspirational.
Being in a group where the others have each-other fully and willingly reminds one that “Hell” is alienation.
It's dear, sweet and heartwarming.
This isn't my genre, but it seems much more engaging than the contrived premise shows. Does anyone really enjoy watching Joe Nautilrock in a hot tub with five boob jobs, deciding which one gets to share his bed?
In the fantasy realm, the relatively dear, sweet and heartwarming show, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" performs even better than the epic "House of the Dragon" which shares the same universe.
Perhaps the audience is moving away from slick, brash and cynical, or at least there is an unserved audience for dear, sweet and heartwarming.
Probably not my show, but happy to read about a show that has people out to support each other rather than gaming against each other.
Cheryl said...We love this show! As michaele said, it is so fun to root for everyone. There are no artificial villains and there is no guile.
Not to be difficult, but doesn't there have to be *some* artificiality given it's people who signed contracts to date for TV cameras? That's always been the Reality TV obstacle I can't surmount.
CJinPA—oh sure, there’s artificiality. I think the presence of the cameras alone creates artificiality, painfully obvious when you can see them looking at the camera during a date. But there’s no weird villain creation. You genuinely root for everyone.
Brokenwood on Acorn is one of the finest and most endearing tv series made, and I’ve been in the network television business for decades. Oddly, it’s a New Zealand production. Miss Scarlet from the UK is a very close second. Not endearing in the least, but I’ve watched the recent Shogun 7 times.
And who doesn’t root for Parker Schnabel and Tony and Minnie Beets?!
- Krumhorn
Transgender spectrum?
Transsocial?
I like the reality show 'Ice Road Truck Stop Robot Prostitute Repair Technicians'.
What the NYT wrote about Love On The Spectrum in the post above, could also describe the appeal of Ice Road Truck Stop Robot Prostitute Repair Technicians almost word for word.
Is this AI or what?
The things Blogger decides to censor... sigh.
Not lying, it's the only show I watch. Besides the personal reasons of having an IDD/DD ASD son and working in the disability field, it's free of all the nonsense writers and media bring that I've never experienced.
My wife has her list of 'stupid shows' she watches to just turn off her mind and be entertained. I think we all do, in various ways. But this is the only one of her shows that actually catches me and stops me. I find myself hanging around to watch for a minute, that turns into 20 minutes.
It's pure. It's innocent. Very real and sweet. Compared to watching Sean Hannity, who has clearly been bored with his own show for the last 10 years, or Rachel Maddow's angry, contorted face wishing half the country would just be taken away, this is so much more fun to watch.
And it beats any formulaic network show.
It's fun to see humans behave as humans without constraints, just being themselves in the most pure way.
Sorry. Any show that starts with the proposition that its subject matter falls into a category box ("neurodivergent" or "on the spectrum") is going to be plagued by narrative capture (at best) and prejudice and bigotry (at worst). Yes, love and relationships are messy - but singling out the experiences of a specific group is necessarily exploitative (since we are selling advertising, after all) even if the producers "mean well". (And I say this in the face of what seems to be a host of AI generated comments to the contrary the NY Times comment section - just check them out to see how at least 3 of them are using virtually identical wording)
Well if you've lived the experience of messy young adult love you don't need to watch a show. Of course in my case all that was long ago and I survived.
"[T]he reason this show is so successful is that it is one of the only, if not the only, show that truly depicts how important innocent, authentic, messy, real love is. In the show, love and finally being in partnership is a heart-opening, inspiring, special dream.... While the rest of society suffers through hollow culture of situationships, social media, p*rn, red pills, gender division, AI, this [is an] endearing alternative...."
The reason why the show is a success is because none of the people in it are scum.
That this is unusual says a great deal about the mindsets of the people running show creation, none of it good.
The Left hates good, competent, successful people, especially ones who win on their own individual merit.
They only allow these people on because their "neurodivergence" makes them "victims", and therefore acceptable.
I don't know what this show shows, probably some cute nonsense, but I know that autism means mental illness, it will destroy people who are around them. People who are genuinely trying to help the autistic person to function. If you spend time with mentally people, your mental health will suffer as well. It's not going to be cute, adorable and endearing. No metal illness is. Do you have a direct experience with autism? Have you ever asked yourself why love on the spectrum has a 80-85% divorce rate?
Glamorizing autism, dismissing, hiding, pretending the ugly, disturbing reality of this particular "another way of being" doesn't exist - it's not just wrong, it's dangerous. Would you find schizophrenia endearing and cute?
If I can save another innocent, naive soul from marrying a neurodivergent man, I will be glad. Ladies, DO NOT DO IT. If you are unlucky enough to have children with them, you will be trapped for the rest of your life dealing with a dangerous form of human existence. It will destroy you physically, mentally, psychologically, financially.
Then recommend watching Love is Blind: Ohio, current season on Netflix, to watch how faux-love can simply implode within 15 minutes of a mid-season episode. The short dude with the older MD lady. Oy.
Or slow-burn love can expire within three mornths: the pudgy dude with the older mom/NP, double oy, but you must watch reunion episode of series to get full blowback effect.
May be the last of the young gentlemen and genteel ladies in today's dating world are the ones on autistic spectrum who never venture out on a date unless enrolled in Netflix's special-ed(ition) program.
Choosing to watch and recommending Love is Blind: Ohio to others should go into the DSM-5-TR as symptom of autism.
I would chuckle if Tylenol sponsored this show.
People who cope with their own genetic dysfunctionality deserve respect. People who entertain themselves watching the resulting mess are on the voyeurism spectrum.
@stunned: IDK what your experience is.
However, I'm here, my son is here, and none of that has been true for either of us, my wife, or anyone else I know. I work in the field of disability, and I'm not going to bullshit you that everything is wonderful. It's not.
Disability can be more or less severe, and the degree of choice within it varies. I also have some experience with schizophrenia in family members, and I'll take autism every time.
From a caregiving perspective, my profession at this point, one has a choice of how much to do. Most states have an obligation to take care of disabled adults if the family cannot. Sometimes that's the right call. I've seen that happen, and it was better for everyone. Even in the show "Love on the Spectrum," some of the characters are living in group homes.
As far as autistic people being jerks, sure, some certainly can choose to be, and some maybe can't help it. No one should be obligated to endure mistreatment.
Autistic people are not magical, they aren't simply caring souls who are misunderstood any more than anyone else. They make choices, unless they are so disabled they can't, but those people aren't on TV.
I've had more than my share of mentally ill people in my life, and my own nonsense, and it's turned out ok. Yeah, sometimes you have to limit contact because you must look out for yourself. I've done it. I disagree about writing off entire categories of people. "Autistic" is an enormous number of people and even most schizophrenic people recover to some degree, some permanently after one episode. Again, I have direct experience with both.
Should you date either? Well, that's up to you, or anyone else! As you say, by definition both are mental illnesses. You are allowed to be attracted to anyone you want, and so is everyone else, without having to justify it. I can certainly see the argument that it's too risky! But that's true of many personality traits, and I have my own ideas about red flags, too.
So, sorry for whatever happened to you.
@stunned again
I agree with you about autism being a disability, not another or even a superior way of living. It's not, it's a pain in the ass, and not just for the autistic person. It's something to mitigate and overcome, not least for other people. I fight with the tendency to fetishize autism professionally. If it's not a disability, why are all these people, including me, getting paid to deal with it? It's not a superpower.
Yes, some highly intelligent people are amazing systemizers because they are also autistic, but that's not the norm. Mostly, it's people who work whatever jobs they can and have to overcome the tendency to miss social cues and stop thinking and talking about the TV show or video game they like and focus on work.
Autism does not always prevent someone from being nice to people! If one applies the systemizing drive to human relationships, it can be extremely effective. It's like learning a second language as an adult, but it can be done. It's also an obligation, it seems to me, simply to make life bearable for everyone. This is true of all people.
But finally, yeah, I like autistic people. They are trying to pattern-match the world as they see it, and they try very hard to be consistent. If this, then this, without a lot of the hypocrisy most people use. This can train wreck sometimes, but it's fundamentally a good impulse, it seems to me. The TV show captures this.
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