Are there hundreds of contestants and are they virtually indistinguishable from each other at first sight? Yes! Is it noisy? Yes! Can you feel it encouraging appetites and urges – voyeurism, schadenfreude, extreme emotional investment in strangers – that a responsible citizen and society should strive neither to serve nor encourage? Oh yes! Is that done by forcing relationships then putting them under outre stressors, including unexpected toilet conditions, on an otherwise paradisiacal island? Yes! And is it at least nominally presented by Davina McCall, though actual sight of her is limited to a few opening minutes of the first episode and it is increasingly cheeky to bill her as a presence? Yes, yes to all of the above. Welcome to your next addictive reality show, 12 hour-long episodes designed to transition you comfortably into the autumn schedules – Stranded on Honeymoon Island.
It is Love Island meets Married at First Sight, if – and you will have to strain your imaginations here – the contestants on Love Island weren’t often instantly awful. This lot are, in the main, rather gorgeously endearing. I hadn’t realised how ready I was for a show that didn’t require me to bring my best loathing game. I find I have so much energy for the rest of the day.
Like all good reality TV shows (take note, Destination X), the setup is as stupid as it is simple and as simple as it is stupid. Eight kabillion single people who are ready to find lurve speed-date, fill in feedback forms, and from them a dozen are paired up by matchmakers. They then get hitched in the Philippines by celebrant Wenly (“Although this marriage is not legally binding, you are making a meaningful commitment to someone”, which is true as long as you realise that someone is the production company). The couples then get left on a nearby island for three weeks. There is a double bed, rudimentary shelter, a row of tinned foodstuffs and a loo that is maybe a notch and a half better than a bucket. We are promised that “mystery crates” containing items and challenges designed to test the honeymooners’ compatibility will arrive in later episodes. Good times!
You find yourself rooting for an unusually high proportion of the couples. I wish for no one to dim the light of effervescent party girl Hannah and I very much feel that lovely suit designer Sam is the man to allow her to shine. When they hit the first bump in the road, I find myself pressing my fists to my face, begging her not to let her past bad experiences distort it into something it is not. “He is not your ex!” I plead to the screen. “Look at his eyes! Look at the way he recut your wedding dress into something playful yet provocative yet island-chores-ready. Come on! The past is not your future.”
I am also fully in favour of Helen (“Essex girl and raging lesbian – that’s how I introduce myself!”) and Abby making a go of things. What can I tell you? They’re just right together. I bet Davina agrees with me. If we ever see her again, maybe she’ll say so.
Oh, and the two devout Christians, David and Ini! He used to sleep around but it wasn’t making him happy so he “cried to God” for help and it was given. Now he is ready to settle down, start a family, give his children the love he didn’t experience at boarding school and I just know that Ini is the one for him. Sure, it might have been better if he hadn’t mentioned at the altar that there was another woman on the speed dates he would have been equally happy to find coming down the aisle towards him, but every non-marriage has its teething troubles, amirite? I mean, just ask Moray (another boarding-school boy) and Mae (who is single after her ex had a terrible accident “and fell into his colleague’s vagina” and cannot date anyone who drives a manual car because it makes their heads move like chickens’ and makes her feel sick – I pledge undying allegiance to this woman). He tells her on the second day of their honeymoon that she reminds him of his cousin and he’s also getting “little sister vibes”. O tempora, o Moray.
It’s a lot of fun, fuelled by optimism instead of despair and populated by people who genuinely seem to like each other and who are frequently funny. It’s a rare beast. Not quite as rare as actual sightings of Davina, but there are several episodes to go. Maybe she’ll be in a mystery crate, along with some pointers for boarding-school boys looking for love.