Eden, Descendants of Instinct 2 (2022)

So scripted that I felt insulted

Let me say this: I love dating shows. And, as a viewer, I am perfectly aware that:
- contestants are carefully picked, because they have to be pretty and fit certain standards, and many are part of the entertainment industry or want to start a career in this field.
- 90% of contestants choose to participate to get exposure, promote themselves or their company/restaurant/whatever.
- the staff often encourage contestants to behave a certain way to create more drama, or put contestants in stressfull situations just to film something interesting.
- even if couples are formed, they rarely survive in RL and fizzle out right after the show (bonus: sometimes people choose each other just to save face and to declare that they've been successfull in x show).

But that being said, Eden succeded in making me feel insulted, because I can't help but think that they treated all us viewers as idiots.
This season has only 8 episodes and at first everything seemed fine: the cast seemed interesting, people were nice, there were intriguing possibilities and one could feel excited when thinking about what could happen. This quickly went south episode after episode, because between cringy product placements and scenes that were full blown ads, the contestants started to make... not much sense.
Also, shoutout to the panelists that publicly defended a man that doesn't understand the concept of consent and that thinks that chasing a girl is warranted even when she tells you face to face that she doesn't like you. Same for another girl that didn't to much better, chasing a guy like a little stalker <3

Episodes 6-7 in particular were a mess, and I won't spoil you with the details and names of who did what, but let me just say that it was peak madness: some of the contestants changed their mind overnight or even in FEW MINUTES, there was drama because of a KISS ON THE CHEEK (when we're talking about a reality that's supposed to be a bit spicy, get out of here lol), dramatic tantrums about one-sided crushes that honestly deserved to wither and die weeks before etc.

And then, after I thought things could't get worse, apparently at least two people wrote on social media that the producers were forcing storylines dictating what they needed to do and that they were very frustrated but couldn't to anything about it. Barf.

What irks me the most though, it's that even without those social media posts, it's so crystal clear that this "reality" isn't free at all, that we might as well call it a bad soap opera. But the thing is, the PDs didn't realize how bad this was and mistook us - the general public - as colossal idiots.

So honestly, I usually try to encourage everyone to at least give a chance to 80% of any show, but this? Don't waste you time, because this is awful. This is taking the piss. If you want to watch people make bad decisions, go to Mc Donald's and leave Eden Season 2 alone.

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