A dating show with no drama, a survival show with no fight and a reality show with no real winners gives you Singles Inferno.
When you think of a “reality dating show”, you immediately picture stolen kisses, shocking plot twists and tons of drama. This, coupled with heightened emotions from being stranded on an island with hardly any supplies, screams peak entertainment. But Single’s Inferno, the new Korean style Love Island x Survivor falls flat on all fronts. With its minimal drama, unimaginative recoupling games and colourist undertones, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
The premise of the show is – Korean singles are stranded on a sweltering hot island called “Inferno” where they must cook their own food in traditional fire stoves and live in tents. But the firewood is not the only thing sizzling, as sparks fly between a few couples while they mingle over the course of nine days. There is a twist too, as contestants cannot reveal any personal information like their ages or occupations. Along the road, opportunities to take partners to a lavish hotel called “paradise” are presented in the form of challenges, where they can then reveal their true selves and feast.
While the idea to leave contestants with only sustenance and romance was a brilliant one, the execution was suboptimal. On the survival front, the show was dismal as it came off more as a glamping getaway rather than a gruelling fight for survival. Contestants were given everything right from makeup, food supplies, comfortable bedding and even had access to cold and room temperature water. I don’t even have that kind of variety of water to choose from at my flat! I have seen more of a survival theme on Seventeen One Fine Day – 13 Castaway Boys, a K-idol small-time reality show, than on this whole season.
When it comes to romance and flirty advances, it was even worse. The show tried its hand at pitching the ideal K-drama relationship trope as a reality but there was no pay-off. The lack of jaw-dropping kiss scenes, strong love triangles and for that fact even a clear winner, was plain disappointing. The surface level small talk and lack of game (yes, I went there) also never properly reflected the contestant’s personalities. On asides, contestants would refer to their counterparts as funny and extroverted, but viewers never really got the opportunity to fully fall in love with them as we were never shown those charismatic qualities in these very real people. Since personalities were clearly not the focal point of the show, that leaves us with looks and physical attraction. While shows like Love Island also focus on eye candy you get an opportunity to really root for someone as you get a peek into their personal lives. This show, however, offers no comfort in that aspect as the contestants are not allowed to spill till they go to “paradise”. To add to that, some contestants got such less screen time it was hard to even remember their names. That being said, the way directors end each episode on a somewhat ominous note was the only reason I even clicked on the next one.
To continue along the topic of physical appearance, while I understand that dating shows are all about seeing the battle of the sexes play out between attractive men and women, they do not usually condone colourism. At the very beginning of Single’s Inferno, two contestants described their ideal type as women who have “lighter skin” and those who are “white and pure”. While this has been justified since as a “beauty standard”, to me – someone who has been made with melanin- I found it downright offensive. Does that mean these men see women with a darker complexion as unattractive? We live in an age where everyone’s lifting their middle fingers to the rules of conformity right from ideal body types to gender, so it shouldn’t be any different when it comes to beauty standards in any country.
I digress. The only saving grace of this show was the comedic commentary alongside the boring scenes on the island. The commentary by Lee Da-hee, Jin Kyeong Hong, Kyu-hyun Cho and Jung Han-hae was somewhat synonymous with my views about certain circumstances which made me chuckle. Another reason I completed watching the season was to see Moon Se-hoon’s fate. Watching a man like Moon Se-hoon get rejected multiple times when it was evident, he’s not someone who often overlooked was somewhat addicting to watch. However, things got a little uncomfortable when he was adamant and kept chasing the girl that swatted his advances until…well there’s no spoilers here.
Ultimately the show ended with no real winners, no elimination rounds and gave me no satisfaction to watch. With full conviction, I can say- while the influence of Hallyu (the Korean wave) is evident in the film industry after the success of Parasite and Squid Game it’s hard to say that Hallyu has successfully dominated the reality dating show scene.
1/5
Picture Credit: TheMovieDB