Are You the One ? : A La Recherche Des Couples Parfaits

Are You the One is a trashy but weirdly interesting reality dating show. 10 male and 10 female eligible singles are brought to a resort in Hawaii where they live together and attempt to determine, by any means, who is their "perfect match" The matches are preselected by means of a matchmaking process. In each episode the contestants engage in Survivor-style challenges to determine who go on "dates". The other contenstants can then send one of the couples into the "truth booth" to see if they are a perfect match and if they are they get to vacation in the "honeymoon suite". At the end of each episode, the contestants each select a potential match and if the group guesses all 10 correctly, they win a million dollar prize. Usually over a process of elimination (and sometimes soap-opera style romances) the contestants are able to narrow down their perfect matches, but must guess all 10 by the 10th episode to win the prize.

This show has several fatal flaws, the most obvious of which is whether it is possible to have accurate matchmaking at all. Often contestants go into the truth booth thinking they have found their match only to discover that their read was false; at that point they are forced to abandon their love interest in order to continue playing the game. The eventual matches are sometimes rather dubious, and usually by the later episodes the contestants are forced to engage in a complex process of elimination to figure out the matches.

That said, the main entertainment, and it can be entertaining, is watching people fumble around trying to find their match, stumbling from one superficial relationship to another. If they end up having sex with the wrong person, or get caught up in a love triangle, the relations inside the resort can get pretty heated. You can also keep yourself interested by keeping track of the match making, attempting to make your own guesses as to who should be with whom. All in all this is completely mindless television, probably best described a good exemplar of the decay of our modern culture.

Probably some of the worst narcissists human kind has to offer. Sheer decadence right here served raw. If you want to fuel your disdain for these vile people then keep watching.

So, so bad. Bunch of dumb American youth representing the country in the worst possible way. You'd be more productive watching your yard grow.

Definitely needs way more diversity!!! All the girls look the same! Even the guys look the same! Season 7 was literally and basically just all skinny, white, and light skins! Being on people who look different.

I watched the first two episodes of season 7 and found the contestants to be annoying, self-centered, overly dramatic, superficial, and appearance-obsessed. And they all seemed to think it's okay to have those traits, though they acknowledge they are bad at dating and always choose the wrong people.

The twenty-two self-professed losers come on the show hoping to split a million dollars and, they hope, to learn how to make better choices in partners. A "panel of experts" has supposedly picked eleven "perfect" couples to make us this crew, and the daters have to discover the correct pairings to win the big bucks.

Between all the preening, posing, flirting, and fighting, there are tasks designed either to help them discover their perfect matches or to obfuscate the correct combination of pairings. It's never clear.

I admit I watched the previous season's first and last episodes to get a better perspective on the overall process. I wanted to know if they really learned anything? Was there enlightenment? Were there long-term match-ups? Did they even come close to winning the money?

This exercise helped me see that little changed in the contestants. In the end, there might have been a couple of lessons learned, but their behaviors seemed largely unchanged. And, as suspected, winning the money is a difficult challenge, though not impossible.

If you enjoy watching attractive people with juvenile attitudes and the conviction that being overly dramatic is the best way to be, then this show might be for you. Are some young viewers of MTV seeing these contestants as role models? No doubt, and that's why it deserves a low grade.