Well, sick comrades of America, we got what we deserved. We inhaled Love Is Blind. We demanded a second season of Too Hot to Handle. We dived into the depths of the 90 Day Fiancé universe. We saw Zooey Deschanel and Michael Bolton host a reboot of the dating game, and we begged our TV overlords to ask for more – unmistakably misguided declarations of love, plus why-you-would-this one.
And so, for our sins, we got the Netflix wedding or mortgage, in which the engaged couples debate whether to plan an elaborate wedding or buy a house. We’ve been doomed to Naked and Afraid of Love, an upcoming Discovery + bet that places 16 naked strangers with hopes of romance on an island. And this week, Netflix unleashed Sexy Beasts, who dresses a singleton and three potential suitors in monstrous latex masks and sends them on dates.
You may remember the trailer for the show, which lit up the internet with twin questions of what? and why? After watching the show, I don’t know what, and I’m afraid none of us will ever know. But the why – well, like I said, for all those times our televisions asked us if we were still watching and, as our living rooms were engulfed in flames, we said, oh my God yes.
In the space between game shows and reality TV, they are dragons. Also, on Sexy Beasts, literal dragons, or at least people covered in horns and scales. Each episode features a series of speed dating, after which the first date eliminates a suitor, who then, after what is assumed to be substantial amounts of petroleum jelly and / or blasts from a pipe, reappears without a horrific mask, usually much to the chagrin of the date, who now sees that their ex-amor was not a weird mandrill or troll but a handsome candidate for Sunday brunches with mom. This candidate then leaves; two more dates follow, after which a final decision is made, and everyone returns to their human form. Occasionally, before the unmasking, the date and suitor kiss, smearing face paint and two-inch-long artificial teeth against each other’s gums. It is unambiguously the highlight of the show.
Far be it from me to call the powers of Sexy Beasts who are cowards – they have, after all, made a sizable number of singles in their twenties to wear beaks and horns. But the point of a show like this – people with ornate bags on their heads dating other people with ornate bags on their heads – is that they might be making the wrong choice. That is: they could choose an ugly person. I know, I know: The horror! A fate worse than chastity! But that’s the clear implication of a program in which each episode features four big unmasks: The show is only interesting if the person who just eliminated them mourns their beauty as they leave. Or the other way around: that they hate the sight of the mistaken companion they have chosen for the terrible reason to love their personality, their wit, their charm, their dreams and their common interests, or – I suppose – their biceps. , who remain more or less alone.
So I ask: why are they all hot? The most common occupation on Sexy Beasts is modeling – modeling! – but even those who aren’t paid for their DNA are conventionally attractive, usually extraordinarily. There are no unpleasant surprises; every beast on Sexy Beasts is, in fact, sexy. It’s very nice for all the frisky singles to find out that their choice of litter probably could, and already could, juggle a few Instagram sponsors. But that just doesn’t make a very good TV.
You can’t fault them for trying, though – if the edgy spectacle was even a little more edgy, we might have had a particularly cursed gem in our hands. As it stands, though, it’s only the horrific kisses – the stuff of nightmares, really – that pass that particular, uh, very specifically low bar.
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