When you’re a rich and famous athlete, it can be difficult to find someone who loves you for you. That is, unless they don’t know who you are. Love undercovera new dating/reality series on Peacock, takes five wildly successful international soccer players and brings them to Los Angeles, where the women they’re going to date have no idea they’re not just average Joes.
Opening shot: The show opens with a long montage of football highlights interspersed with clips from the upcoming season, clips that consist mostly of dating show clichés and unsuspecting women wondering if they can actually date a construction worker or whatever these rich and famous athletes claim. be. It’s a big edit, so much so that I started to wonder when the show was actually going to start, or if it was going to start at all. The fact is that, unlike stars, they lay their cards on the table from the start.
The essential: From the start of the pilot, we are introduced to the five stars: Premier League players Jamie O’Hara, Ryan Babel and Lloyd Jones, as well as Mexican stars Marco Fabián and Sebastián Fassi. They are transported to a penthouse in Los Angeles, and the women they are going to date are introduced to them only through photos. This is their first try; they can’t even turn on their charm, but instead are humiliated when women choose who they want to date.
What shows will this remind you of? It bears more than a passing resemblance to other dating programs with a twist like Love is blind Or Millionaire Joe or whatever, but the real answer here is Lust conquers allthe fictional dating show that featured as a subplot on S2 of Ted Lasso. If Jamie Tartt were a real person, he would absolutely be here. Infiltrated love.
Our opinion : It has always fascinated me how someone can be extremely famous in one part of the world and virtually anonymous in another. Shortly after Argentine football superstar Lionel Messi left Paris St-Germain for Inter Miami, he was spotted shopping at a Florida supermarket, which reportedly saw him invaded by crowds of adoring fans in Europe or South America. Hell, I’m a sports fan, and outside of a dozen A-list stars, I’m not sure I’d recommend most football players if they stood next to me on the street.
This fame gap is the gimmick behind Love undercover, a surprisingly endearing reality show on Peacock. The five men looking for love on this show are indeed rich and famous, each of whom has achieved great success as an international footballer. They just don’t have the right to say that to the women they date. They’ve been given (mostly boring) cover stories that will require them to turn on the charm without benefit of their status – but it will also hopefully give them a chance to meet someone who isn’t just looking for this Status.
The first round of dates shows how humiliating this process can be for men. Each of their photos is on display for the women to choose from, and three of them choose handsome Lloyd, an unequal split that leaves Jamie and Marco without a date – a situation they clearly haven’t experienced in a long time .
It’s also – to be completely frank – quite funny to see men squirming because they can’t admit the fame and status they actually have. A woman – a self-proclaimed influencer – brags about her 60,000 followers on Instagram, and Ryan is forced to pretend he doesn’t have any (he actually has two million).
The structure of the show, despite the gimmicks, is pretty standard for a dating show and will feel very familiar if you’re a fan of the genre. The problem, though, is that a dating show lives or dies by the power of its gimmick, and the one behind it. Love undercover is a damn good one. (Full disclosure: I’m not usually a fan of the genre, and this still appealed to me.)
Sex and skin: No full nudity, but there is plenty of skin exposed. I mean, we’re trying to make connections here, right?
Starting shot: Tinah – who has repeatedly mentioned her background in journalism – asks Jamie if he’s a football fan, and he sweats as she refuses to believe a Brit like him isn’t in the Premier League. “The Premier League I played in!” Jamie exclaims in his interview afterwards. That’s a big question: will these guys be able to keep their secret?
Sleeping Star: Each of the guys is actually a star, at least somewhere, so it seems a little unfair to pick a sleeper. But from the start, retired English footballer Jamie O’Hara – the oldest and talkative of the group – steals the show with his crude jokes.
Most pilot line: “Have you seen the movie Impossible mission?” asks Sébastien Fassi. “Tom Cruise had it easier than what we have to do. We’re going undercover.
Our call: Spread it. If you like reality TV shows, of course. If you don’t, you’re going to hate it. But if that’s your thing, Love undercover is a fun and surprisingly funny take on the genre.
Scott Hines, editor of the highly regarded Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an experienced architect, blogger, and internet surfer based in Louisville, Kentucky.
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