TV review: Love is Blind is designed to make you shout 'this is a terrible idea' at the telly

Matt and Emma Willis, who host Love is Blind: UK. Picture: Tom Dymond/Netflix

I was at a comedy gig recently where one of the acts was an old-time gag merchant.

Most of his zingers were about marriage, hen-pecking wives, hopeless husbands, you know the score. The audience laughter said it all — marriage is tricky, it’s no joke.

That doesn’t seem to be clear to people who go on Love is Blind (Netflix).

You’ve probably heard of the US version — a bunch of young photogenic people gather on a divided set, men on one side, women on the other.

They then go on a series of literally blind dates (it’s very heterosexual), where they can talk to their dates without seeing them. If that goes well they get engaged to someone they fancy. Then, they get to see them.

The whole show is designed to make you shout "this is a terrible idea" at the telly. After that though, it’s fairly dull.

The first few episodes centre around Steven and Sabrina. He’s overly sincere and literally falls in love with her Northern Ireland accent.

Belfast native Sabrina says she doesn't want to have kids of her own. Picture: Tom Dymond/Netflix

She says "love it" to everything he says. Except when it comes to children, when she says she doesn’t want to have kids of her own, but might be open to adoption. Given how much he said he wanted kids of his own, that should have been that. But Steven said "I’m here for that" which I think is millennial-speak for "Ok".

Then he went down on one knee and proposed, even though she couldn’t see him. It looked like a setup for a gag about marriage. She gave a rambling answer about how much she liked him but … And that was the end of episode one.

My wife, who I actually saw before we got engaged (and still went ahead*), said this is an awful show but I want to see what happens. On to episode two, where the "but" turned out to be misleading and now they’re engaged.

Sabrina returns to the other women and they all hug her and at this point we can stop pretending. I could be wrong, but my guess is most of these good-looking young people would prefer to be on Love Island, where it’s mainly about sex and physical attraction.

Steven is overly sincere and falls in love with Sabrina's Northern Ireland accent. Picture: Tom Dymond/Netflix

There is a character on here, Sam, who looks like he was put in as the pantomime villain. He’s a more spiteful version of David Brent from The Office. I don’t believe him.

If you want some muzak TV that plays in the background while you look at your phone, this is fine. If you want some real-life drama, get married.

*That’s a joke.