British television tends to be much more colorful than in America. Yanks can’t even do Taskmaster, the brilliant game show in which comedians perform ridiculous assignments, for more than one season. But a new Channel 4 program has taken the old-fashioned dating game show in an even more ludicrous and wholly unexpected direction than HBO Max’s FBoy Island.
It’s called The Love Trap, and it premiered about two weeks ago in the U.K. In its native land, it was instantly infamous, as per The Sun, and with good reason. At first it sounds pretty stock: Twelve women compete for the affections of a single eligible bachelor, David Birtwistle. The twist is that half of them are only in it for the money. Birtwistle has to guess which ones are sincere and which ones are liars. And at the end of each episode, he, uh, um, erm, sends one contestant sailing through a trap door.
— Bec Shaw (@Brocklesnitch) November 2, 2021
A clip from the ending of a Love Trap episode found its way onto American social media on Monday, some 12 days after the show premiered. It only shows Birtwistle choosing one woman to be jettisoned. And when she suddenly tumbles to an unknown future — hope she’s okay! — it was clear that it blew a lot of minds.
— Zoe Death-Knell, Beach Witch (@Blankzilla) November 2, 2021
Audibly said OH NO in reaction to this https://t.co/Hz7cbVgaWq
— Eric Pope (@MrPope) November 2, 2021
wait til the end. promise its worth it https://t.co/xSppw9P5St
— Casey Neistat (@Casey) November 2, 2021
I just had a full Joker laugh meltdown watching this https://t.co/3fX1WUG4IC
— Eric Goldman (@TheEricGoldman) November 2, 2021