If you’re looking to escape the drudgery of your current existence, where problems and sweat and summer ennui conspire to ruin your chill vibes, might I suggest a visit to Love Island?
Imagine this: tanned, terracotta British twenty-somethings, cavorting about a villa in Mallorca. Their stated goal: to fall in love with someone—literally, anyone, it really doesn’t matter—in order to make it to the end and win £50,000. The road to true love for these hopeful singles is long, paved with good intentions, and occasionally very boring, but punctuated with a wide range of British accents that lend an appealing foreignness to the proceedings. Does this not sound like the best show on television? Wouldn’t you love to watch it in one long, uninterrupted stretch, seated in front of the cold blast of your window AC unit, while eating a popsicle, yeah?
Love Island is a British reality TV show that’s a combination of Big Brother and Bachelor in Paradise, but stripped of the seedy earnestness that categorizes American reality television steeped in love. It is the best television program I’ve seen in recent memory and it is worthy of your time. Thankfully, other people agreed.
On this week’s episode, we were joined by Vanity Fair staff writer and former Gawker writer Richard Lawson, who also shares a fondness for these messy British youth, and the quiet mundanity of watching people wearing bathing suits and big mic packs navigate the thorny thickets of young love.