Last night, Netflix premiered its live version of the viral YouTube speed-dating series Pop the Balloon, in which real singles make snap judgments about each other, popping big red balloons when they don’t like what they see. It was, predictably, chaotic. Host Yvonne Orji tried her best to keep the contestants from saying deeply offensive things to one another, but she did not succeed. And — spoiler alert — no love was found. Five different men attempted to match with a lineup of eight women, but they were all relegated back to Netflix’s “Love Lounge” without a partner.
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Netflix kept the same basic premise as the YouTube series (host Arlette Amuli and her co-creator husband Bolia Matundi, who goes by BM, are executive producers), but the streamer added some reality-TV tropes that didn’t quite work. In addition to the “Love Lounge” (simply a room where the male contestants sat down), producers gave contestants live, in-the-moment interviews about their experiences. They also cast a couple of reality-TV veterans as contestants, like Johnny Bananas from MTV’s The Real World and The Challenge and Chase DeMoor from Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle.
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Unfortunately, Johnny and Chase’s reality-TV cachet, such that it exists, did not help them find love. Almost all the women popped their balloons before Johnny could even speak (possibly because he made his entrance hiding creepily behind a fake shrub from backstage). He lost even more potential matches when he revealed he has a 680 credit score (wow!), and it was basically over for him when he rudely informed one woman he “could tell” she was a bottle-service waitress at a nightclub.
In a typical reality-TV dating series, the derogatory bottle-service comment probably would have been pored over for an entire scene, with multiple contestants giving their opinion on it. Or perhaps it would have been edited out entirely. But in this instance, Orji had no choice but to keep the live show moving, and the comments got worse.
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Over the course of the 45-minute episode, contestants made uncomfortable, loud remarks about each other’s age, race, general attractiveness level, and even the state of their toes. One poor guy (Keith, a 34-year-old non-famous videographer) practically got hauled off the stage for wearing a burnt orange velour shirt.
If you’ve watched the original YouTube series, you know mean comments are to be expected, but they did not play for laughs on Netflix’s too-bright sound stage. By the time the cast was dancing through the credits, I was more convinced than ever that our society is deeply ill.
If this sounds like a fun time to you, however, Pop The Balloon will be running on Netflix for the next several Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET. The streamer promises more reality-TV vets will appear on future episodes, including — God help us — Teen Mom’s Farrah Abraham. I’m sure she’ll have nice and polite things to say in front of a live audience.
