Dating Unlocked - Season 1 by Border2Border Entertainment with Charlie David was a lot of fun to watch. I streamed all ten episodes in one evening because it was so easy to sit back, relax, and binge watch. The show is hosted by the amazing Yaz The Human. In various ways, Yaz really made the show. Her effortless hosting made the show interesting and kept things very entertaining.
The general premise of the show is that one dater is shown three possibilities. At the end of the episode, things are narrowed down, and the primary dater has to unlock a door and see if their date is on the other side. In an interesting twist, the other person had to agree to be on the other side of the door, so it had to be a match on both sides.
One thing I really appreciated throughout the series was the focus on consent. Everything revolved around consent. Even when the show got a bit spicier (including removal of clothing, frottage, and making out), there were always discussions of consent. In our world today, consent is such an important part of any dating and sexual relationship, so it really made me proud to see this focus within the LGBTQIA2+ community.
Another factor I highly appreciated was the sheer amount of diversity in the dating. We had polyamorous, nonbinary, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and many other colors underneath the large flag of our community. We also had ethnic diversity and body-shape diversity thrown into the mix. You could tell that the producers really thought through how they could full represent the queer dating experience. However, I would argue that the "body-shape" diversity still sided more on average than clearly representing those LGBTQIA2+ of size who are regularly discriminated against in the community. I also would have liked to see a more representation from non-able-bodied individuals. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see open discussions of mental health issues that various daters had on the show. In this respect, I found the show very open.
Overall, is this show perfect? No. It is, however, probably the most interesting dating show I've ever seen.
