Why America doesn’t love Love Island as much as Britain does

The dating show, a cult favourite/guilty pleasure for many in the UK, has struggled to attain the same success on the other side of the Atlantic. Clémence Michallon examines why Love Island has struggled to find its place in the world of US reality TV

Season two of Love Island USA began airing on 24 August 2020. It takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada. (YouTube / Love Island USA)

Have you heard? Love Island USA is back. If you haven't, despite the fact that we're already on episode three of the second season – your blind spot is understandable.

The dating show, a cult favourite/guilty pleasure for many in the UK, has struggled to attain the same success on the other side of the Atlantic. When CBS first announced, back in August 2018, that it would bring Love Island to the US, it was hard to predict if the bet was going to pay off. Sure, the franchise is a household name in the UK, but that in itself isn’t enough to guarantee success somewhere else. Would Love Island stick the landing once stripped of its inherent Britishness?

The answer, so far, has been a resounding “not really”. CBS renewed Love Island USA for a second season before the first one even wrapped up, despite ratings that were called, in turn, “modest”, “shaky”, and “soft”. The problem appears to have persisted: according to TV Line, the season two premiere on 24 August earned just under two million viewers, falling behind the first season’s 2019 premiere.

Love Island USA wasn’t exactly a critics darling during its first run, either. A prudent Vanity Fair review of the premiere remarked: “It’s still unclear whether the first episode of Love Island USA will attract viewers who don’t already care about the original British version – and whether the show can manage to hold on to fans of the British version, who are already tasked with watching a million episodes of that show’s current fifth season, airing now in the UK.”

For IndieWire, the show was “drowning in indecisiveness”. “Ratings are low, buzz is minimal, and, while there’s a lot of finger-pointing as to why, it’s really a number of factors that all come back to the production’s rampant indecisiveness,” the review noted, adding later on: “It’s not that this version is bad; plenty of reality TV is supposed to be bad. But Love Island is boring.”

So far, the second season of Love Island hasn’t generated much buzz in the US – though of course, only a couple of episodes have aired so far, so things could still change. But there’s no denying the show has struggled to charm US audiences. So what’s not clicking?

Well, for a start, Love Island could be, for lack of a better word, too vague. The most successful dating shows to have swayed US viewers tend to have very specific premises. Storytelling, in the world of US reality TV, is formulaic: shows adhere to a pattern engineered to create tension or drama even in the most mundane situations. The result is a comfortable, cosy structure that combines the comfort of expectations being met with the trepidation-by-proxi we all feel when becoming involved in someone else’s drama.

Case in point: House Hunters, a show that literally centres around people searching for a home. It should be boring, but it’s not, mainly because each of the three options every participant is presented with always has a little something wrong with it (or so we are told). Participants also have a documented history of making absolutely unexpected (and by unexpected I mean wrong) choices. The stakes shouldn’t feel high, but they do, and the result is a show that lends itself perfectly to the kind of binging every network is after.

This applies to dating shows, too. In the US, they are more often than not powered by niche set-ups that turn them into quasi-science experiments. Think about 90-Day Fiancé, a show whose existence is based solely on the existence of the K-1 visa, which allows participants to bring a potential spouse to live with them into the US, giving them three months to decide whether or not they’re ready for marriage. Or Married At First Sight, in which couples agree to wed the first time they meet and must decide whether to divorce or stay married.

This isn’t even to mention Netflix’s Love Is Blind (potential couples get to know each other without ever meeting face to face, and must decide whether or not to get engaged without ever having seen the other person) and Back with the Ex (former couples must decide whether or not to get back together). And yes, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have relatively straightforward premises (“here’s a bunch of strangers, pick one of them to be your spouse”), but the stakes are decidedly high.

Perhaps there is also something a bit passé about Love Island and the celebrity culture it encompasses. Yes, it is technically a competition, with couples strategically coupling and re-coupling, but much of its content is reminiscent of the late-1990s/early 2000s era of reality TV. Big Brother launched in July 2000 on both sides of the Atlantic – and to be fair, it has endured longer in the US than in the UK.

For a while, it seemed that watching a cast of strangers interacting on camera would be enough to keep us entertained. Back then, TV held a stronger pull (this was before social media), and simply being on it meant you had a reasonable shot at fame, at least for a little while. But is it possible we’ve begun to move past that? Is it possible that we, as viewers, need stronger, more intricate, perhaps stranger premises to keep us hooked?

Love Island has also prompted renewed debate about the type of celebrity culture fostered by reality shows. Two former contestants, as well as presenter Caroline Flack, have died by suicide. This isn’t unique to Love Island – Hana Kimura, a participant on Terrace House, also died by suicide in May this year. The well-known mental health concerns that seem to go hand in hand with the world of reality TV does call into question just how much we want to continue building on that format, at least in the way we have so far.

Before anyone accuses me of alleging that US reality TV is somehow better than its UK counterpart: I don’t believe it is! But I can see how one country’s output wouldn’t necessarily be as successful abroad. Trust me, I have no skin in this game. I’m French! My home country has perhaps three dating shows! We don’t even really have dating! And so I must go back to what we do best: smoking a lot, wearing berets, and staring into the abyss, confused but also unbothered by our romantic entanglements.

If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.

For services local to you, the national mental health database – Hub of Hope – allows you to enter your postcode to search for organisations and charities who offer mental health advice and support in your area.

In the US, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 800 273 8255 or chat online for help.