Hotter than a K-pop star, but is Netflix’s South Korean dating show Singles Inferno too hot to handle?
- The reality show has swept all before it, becoming Netflix’s fifth-most-watched TV programme thanks to a cast of achingly beautiful and successful singles
- But critics say its success comes at the heel of the more true-to-life approaches of former shows in the genre, such as Jjak
With participants who look like characters from K-dramas and storylines that wouldn’t be out of place in a film script, reality television dating shows have captured the imagination of South Korean audiences.
But while it is hard to doubt the popularity of such shows – the latest of which, Single’s Inferno, recently became the fifth-most-watched television show on Netflix – quite how much “reality” they contain is another matter.
With their tall, slim frames, chiselled jaws and perfect smiles, the contestants on Single’s Inferno stand out not only for a level of beauty that would make a K-pop star blush. Hailing from world-class universities, with socially coveted – and well-paid – careers as doctors and models, and having been pre-screened for their “interesting” personalities, they are seemingly ideal in pretty much every way.
And if the contestants are anything but “ordinary Joes”, the situation they find themselves in is even more far-fetched. Billed as the South Korean version of the racy US dating show Too Hot to Handle, Single’s Inferno features 12 people marooned on a desert island who get to leave the island and taste “heaven” only by going on a date with another contestant at a luxury hotel.
In a country struggling with historic lows in its marriage and birth rates, little about the show suggests “reality”, yet most observers say it is exactly this blurring of the “real” and the “celebrity” worlds – the claim that these people are, at least nominally, commoners like you and me – that has made it so popular. After its first two episodes premiered on December 18, Singles Inferno became the first non-drama television series from South Korea to enter Netflix’s Global Top 10 charts – and the most-watched show on Netflix Korea.
“The emergence of semi-celebrities, or average people who are like celebrities, is a big reason I watch these shows,” said Kim So-ri, 26, who works at a stock firm. “I didn’t know there were so many good-looking people with elite backgrounds.”