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  • Join Date: October 4, 2020
Completed
EXchange Season 1
11 people found this review helpful
Feb 26, 2022
15 of 15 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 4.5
Story 5.5
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

This is the dating reality show I actively disliked the most.

This is the dating reality show I actively disliked the most.

The concept is cruel. What happens when you put a bunch of people in a house, who have to share it with their exes, and have to witness them flirting/being flirted with by strangers? Add the daily hours-long sessions of downing alcohol into the mixtures, and it's no wonder some contestants end up taking a break halfway through. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if people quit altogether.

What annoyed me the most was the sense of entitlement. For example, the show makes people text someone they are interested in, at the end of the day. The text is anonymous, but there's an additional message informing them if one of the texts belonged to their ex or not. What you see is people getting upset that their ex didn't text them... even when they didn't text their ex themselves. You're not dating them anymore, you don't own them (and never did). What's worse is when certain contestants start forcing unsolicited advice on their ex. Stop. It's none of your business, butt the hell out.

And that's not all. The staff criticize contestants who focus solely on one person. They harp on about how they're playing the concept of the show incorrectly, which supposedly is to get to know different people. Says who? If that was the intent of the PD team, then they should've followed the Love Catcher route of forcing pre-established couples for the dates. People have limited time and energy, even more so in this show format, and the social norm is to focus that on one person only. Get real.

Another point that lead to some burnout on my side is how some episodes go over 2 and a half hours long. Either split into more episodes, or learn to cut content adequately. It's inconsistent, there's episodes a little over 1 hour and some around the above mentioned length.

This is not to say that there weren't some nice and heartelt vulnerably emotional moments. However, I feel many of the content is implicitly toxic, and made me frustrated more often than not.

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