Reality television has an all-new genre, and its undeniable charms have already begun to conquer the streaming platforms and airwaves.
A new generation of LGBTQ+ dating shows has arrived, serving a plate of chaotic and camp young heartbreakers.
From Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Queer Love to the UK’s first-ever gay dating show, I Kissed A Boy, they are sure to capture you in their exotically technicolour spells, with no lack of eye candy and Mediterranean scenery.
These new queer series deliver their cocktails salted with tears, amidst popping colourful wardrobes, public confessions of love, questionable love triangles – and spectacularly well-timed pop songs.
If you’re dipping your toes in the waters of LGBTQ+ dating shows for the first time, here is where to start. Come on in – the water’s toxic.
For glossy escapism… The Ultimatum: Queer Love
The Ultimatum invites an intriguing new era for LGBTQ+ dating shows, leaning into what makes them addictive (the innuendos and sexual non-sequiturs) and shifting away from what has dragged them down in the past (the trauma porn and teary confessionals).
Netflix
Cast members of The Ultimatum: Queer Love are all queer women or non-binary, making it one of few in the genre to be exclusively queer.
This bingeable Netflix series is an excellent entry point for anyone new to the genre. It’s full of moments of [insert confrontational background music], as we see five couples of women and non-binary partners pushed to their limits.
The official logline for the show reads: “In just over eight weeks, each couple will either get married, or get out, after they each choose new potential partners in a life-changing opportunity to get a glimpse of two different futures.”
The show skirts issues of race, trust, fidelity and gender, but it’s really a showcase for deliriously unhinged contestants to throw their love lives into a blender for our enjoyment.
Bon Appétit!
For heartbreak and humour…. I Kissed A Boy
TVNZ/Supplied
I Kissed A Boy is the new UK gay reality dating show on TVNZ
It has Danii Minogue. It has a cast of 10 young charming gays. It has one-liners such as “Anyone left un-kissed will be leaving the masseria”.
What’s not to love?
“Ten single guys are matched up, and meet for the first time – with a kiss,” reads the logline for I Kissed A Boy, and that’s the thrust of it.
The season is building towards a wedding (!) but the first episode is 45 minutes of fizzy fun about bad kissers, lukewarm first dates, and how to style your speedo.
The show sees a cast of ten hugely charismatic young contestants – these are a massively likeable bunch (who don’t have that “I’m desperate to be a star” quality that latches onto so many Love Island wannabes).
TVNZ/Supplied
I Kissed A Boy is hosted by Danii Minogue, sister of Kylie
And while her big sister Kylie Minogue delivers the pride anthem of the European summer (Padam), Danii makes her case as the gay community’s new poster girl with I Kissed A Boy.
Minogue is the emcee of the show, in what is essentially a gay twist on Love Island, bringing us a splashy new take in a sun-kissed villa, with tropes and a fresh twist.
It all centres around something called a “kiss-off”, but the plotline mirrors every other straight dating show – a remote villa, pop tunes, and a surfeit of charming Brit slang.
Available now on TVNZ, the BBC Three show (with the memorable pitch: “The path to love is never straight”) has already premiered to favourable reviews, praised for its body diversity, campy voiceovers, and Dua Lipa-tracked joy.
For not-so-squeaky-clean fun… For the Love of DILFs
TVNZ/Supplied
For the Love of DILFs is hosted by Stormy Daniels
Stormy Daniels (yes, that one), hosts this gay reality dating show that asks the eternal question – what happens when you pit himbos and daddies against one another?
It’s a recipe for chaos, in a show that seems to have been created title-first, with things like structure, plot, and themes following behind.
In the words of the show’s own tagline, For the Love of DILFs is “an explosive dating show where two groups of gay men (‘Daddies’ and ‘Himbos’) compete to find love and win a $10,000 investment into their relationship.”
And, yes, all of this takes place in something called “the DILF mansion”.
That Daniels, the unlikely poster girl of the Trump resistance, happens to host the show somehow manages to be the least random thing about it.
The porn star turned Trump accuser brings a unique flavour to the show, which pitches itself as a “hypersexualised” version of its competitors.
Come for the spectacle of DILF mansion, stay for the jockstraps.
And, who knows? You might just glimpse some true love along the way.
