Love Is Blind (TV series)


Love Is Blind is a dating reality television series, produced by Kinetic Content and created by Chris Coelen which premiered on Netflix on February 13, 2020 as part of a three-week event. The series has been compared to Married at First Sight, which was also produced by Kinetic Content, and The Bachelor. A total of ten episodes were released, in addition to a reunion special that was released on Netflix and YouTube on March 5.
Netflix renewed Love Is Blind for a second and third season on March 24, 2020.

Format

The series follows thirty men and women hoping to find love. For ten days in a speed dating format, the men and women date each other in different "pods" where they can talk to each other, but not see each other. Whenever they decided, the men were able to propose to the woman they want to marry. After the proposal, and meeting face to face for the first time, the engaged couples headed to a couples retreat in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. During this trip they spent time getting to know their partners and were able to meet the other couples participating in the experiment.
Following the couples retreat, the engaged couples moved to the same apartment complex back in Atlanta. While at the apartments, they all met their partners' families and explored their partners' living conditions. On the day of the wedding, the engaged couples carried out wedding ceremonies and needed to make their final decisions at the altar about whether to split up or get married, answering the question "Is love blind?"

Season summary

Contestants


NameAgeOccupationHometownRelationship Status
Lauren Speed32Content CreatorDetroit, MichiganMarried, November 2018
Cameron Hamilton28Data ScientistLee, MaineMarried, November 2018
Amber Pike27Ex-tank MechanicAugusta, GeorgiaMarried, November 2018
Matthew Barnett27EngineerCanton, GeorgiaMarried, November 2018
Giannina Gibelli25Business OwnerCaracas, VenezuelaIn a relationship
Damian Powers27General ManagerHeidelberg, GermanyIn a relationship
Jessica Batten34Regional ManagerRock Falls, IllinoisSplit at wedding
Mark Cuevas24Fitness TrainerChicago, IllinoisSplit at wedding
Kelly Chase33Holistic Health & Empowerment CoachAtlanta, GeorgiaSplit at wedding
Kenny Barnes27SalesCaliforniaSplit at wedding
Diamond Jack28Former NBA DancerAtlanta, GeorgiaSplit before the wedding
Carlton Morton34Social Media MarketerLouisianaSplit before the wedding
Danielle Drouin27Yoga InstructorAtlanta, GeorgiaSplit before the wedding
Rory Newbrough28Senior Consultant & Content CreatorAlpharetta, GeorgiaSplit before the wedding
Lexie Skipper26Sales ManagerGeorgiaSplit before the wedding
Westley Baer27Sales Manager and Life CoachGeorgiaSplit before the wedding
Lauren "LC" Chamblin26Recruiter/Account ExecutiveAtlanta, GeorgiaNot engaged
Matt Thomas28Director of Brawl for a CauseNot engaged
Taylor Lupton31Creative DirectorNot engaged
Ryan Martin29Automotive SalesNot engaged
Alyson Costa36Pediatric Nurse and Client Relations DirectorNot engaged
Andy Rickert30WelderNot engaged
Briana Holmes24CEO of nonprofit and Web DesignerNot engaged
Kenneth Smith36Master Barber & Shop OwnerNot engaged
Ebony Alexis30JournalistNot engaged
Jon Smith38CEO, Storm Restoration ServiceNot engaged
India Bridgeforth29Project ManagerNot engaged
Mikey Cobb31Business AnalystNot engaged
Kay Mitchell30Administrative DirectorNot engaged
Lillie Williams36CEO of PR agencyNot engaged

Notes

Episodes

On January 30, 2020, it was announced that Love Is Blind would be released across three weeks. The first five episodes were released on February 13, with four episodes the following week. The finale was released on February 27, 2020. A reunion episode was released on March 5 on Netflix and YouTube.

Production

Filming

Filming took place in Atlanta, Georgia, from October 9, 2018, and lasted 38 days up until the weddings. The couples met face-to-face on October 19. The ten days in the pods were shot at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayetteville. Then, after the newly engaged couples left the pods, filming took place at the Grand Velas Riviera Maya in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, when all the couples went on a retreat. The relationships that made it through the retreat in Mexico move in together in an apartment complex. After the retreat, the couples headed back to Atlanta to the Spectrum on Spring apartment building, where they spent the rest of the time filming up until the weddings. The weddings took place at two event spaces called Flourish Atlanta and The Estate on November 15.

Release

The trailer for Love Is Blind was released on January 30, 2020. With the trailer, it was announced that the ten-episode series would be released on a three-week schedule: the first five episodes were released on February 13, 2020, the next four on February 20, and the finale on February 27.
On February 26, 2020, Netflix announced a reunion special available on YouTube on March 5.

Unaired engagements

A total of eight couples got engaged among the participants. In addition to the six couples shown on the series, couples Westley Baer and Lexie Skipper and Rory Newbrough and Danielle Drouin also got engaged in the show. Newbrough told People, "As we were preparing to go to the Mexico trip, the leads of the show came in and said, 'Hey, we were expecting maybe one or two . The shows we've done before, we've never had this much success. We prepared for five. Then we got eight engagements, so we had to pick who we were going to follow.' We got our phones back. They thanked us graciously and said, 'Sorry, we just don’t have enough to cover everybody.'"
After getting engaged in the pods, Baer and Skipper continued to date for three months before breaking up. Newbrough and Drouin took a week-long trip to Miami together after getting engaged. They broke up after returning from the trip and Drouin decided to pursue a relationship with another participant on the show, Matt Thomas. Thomas and Drouin later split as well.

Reception

Viewership

During the week of the finale, Love Is Blind became Netflix's number-one trending program, likely due to large scale stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Netflix recorded that Love Is Blind had delivered 1.5 million viewers for the first five episodes, 1.3 million for the next four episodes, and 829 thousand for the finale episode in its first full week. As of, the reunion episode had been viewed by over 1.9 million viewers on YouTube alone. At their Q1 meeting in April 2020, Netflix reported 30 million households had watched the series.
On March 24, 2020, Love Is Blind was renewed for a second and third season.

Critical response

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 74% based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 5.75/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Addictive, but problematic, Love Is Blind is undoubtedly an intoxicating binge, but its version of romance often comes off more toxic than aspirational." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 62 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Tricia Crimmins of Mashable reviewed the first five episodes of Love Is Blind following their initial release on February 13. Comparing it to The Bachelor, Crimmins called the series "the bizarre reality TV experiment you've been craving". She comments that you never know what the couples will do next, even down to the altar at the wedding, making the series "harmless, entertaining, and satisfying."
Lucy Mangan of The Guardian gave Love Is Blind a rating of 2 out of 5 stars, calling it toxic, revolting, but extremely addictive. She says that Love Is Blind is the final nail in the coffin of humanity; however, in terms of reality television, she states that it is good because it "exploits emotional frailties, profaning the sacred, making the private and precious public and worthless and turning it into voyeuristic ratings-bait." Despite all of this, she recommends the show as a casual reality television binge, similar to The Bachelor.
Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly called the series "intensely tragic yet riveting." She criticized the series, saying that the first four episodes in the pods feel new and fresh, but once the engaged couples enter the real world, it feels like just another bad dating reality television show. Baldwin also called it depressing, citing the contestants always saying, "If I don't get married now, I never will." Overall, Baldwin gave Love Is Blind a C+ rating.