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Too Hot to Handle Is Basically Love Island With No Touching


Perfect for people craving content adjacent to Love Is Blind and Bachelor in Paradise, Netflix’s latest reality show, Too Hot to Handle, centers on a group of young, hot singles who move to a resort and are tasked with forging deep, romantic connections. A $100,000 cash prize is waiting for them if they succeed.

But here’s the catch: They’re not allowed to have any sexual contact with each other. Any kissing, fondling, or actual sex results in a decrease in the prize money. Wild, right? It takes all the best elements of Love Is Blind and Bachelor in Paradise and amplifies them.

There’s another show Too Hot to Handle will remind you of, too: Love Island, the British reality dating series about hot singles who spend an entire summer coupling up with other hot singles in hopes of emerging as the audience’s favorite duo. If you even casually know what Love Island is, you’ll see the comparisons to Too Hot to Handle easily. If not, allow me explain—and after you finish Too Hot to Handle, give Love Island a spin. I promise you’ll be just as hooked.

The setting

The mega-mansions that house the contestants in each of these shows are just as important as the people themselves. They are similar in style, both with gathering areas, fire pits, getting-ready pods, and huge pools. All the daters sleep in a single room with multiple beds, which means it’s very difficult to get away with…you know, doing things. On Love Island, they just don’t care and do it anyway. On Too Hot to Handle, they literally can’t without breaking the rules.

The snarky narrators

The best part of Love Island is arguably the narrator, Iain Stirling, whose shady commentary grounds the hot-people problems of the show in some kind of reality. The same thing applies to Too Hot to Handle, courtesy of a delightfully sarcastic female narrator who doesn’t let any of the ridiculous things the cast does go by without some comment. When she rags on Haley for thinking the word “loophole” meant “silver lining,” or when Chloe congratulated herself for saying “animosity?” I died.

Dates

One-on-one dates on Love Island and Too Hot to Handle don’t happen consistently, like they do in Bachelor Nation. They’re sporadic and impromptu—and both daters don’t know about them until minutes before. The dates on these shows also aren’t extravagant like they are on The Bachelor. They happen in hot tubs or on blankets by the beach. Nothing fancy, but arguably more intimate than anything we’ve seen on any Bachelor show.

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The gathering spot.

In both Love Island and Too Hot to Handle, there’s a spot where the collective group meets for big announcements: a fire pit. It’s here where the hosts typically drop major bombshells, like cast eliminations on Love Island or if the group has lost money on Too Hot to Handle. In the latter’s case, it’s even funnier because the host is a talking, Alexa-like robot named Lana.

The introduction of new housemates.

These shows each do a good job at bringing new cast members in to shake up the state of the union. On Love Island, it’s to break up or challenge existing couples. On Too Hot to Handle, it’s similar, but mostly it’s to see if a new person may tempt someone to break the no-hooking up rule.

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The dress code

Everyone is in swimsuits 98% of the time. During the other 2%, they’re wearing Instagram influencer-ready evening wear, which is funny because….who are they dressing up for? I’ve always wondered this on Love Island, and I had the same confusion during Too Hot to Handle. I understand it’s a TV show, but the pomp and circumstance of it all is not lost on me.

The cast of Too Hot to Handle. 

Aline Arruda/Netflix

And last but not least: The conceit of the show

While the methods of the programs differ, the goal is to same: to find a true romantic relationship that stands on solid ground, and then see how money plays into that. Both shows offer the promise of a cash prize if you find true love. What happens after that, though, is anyone’s game.

Too Hot to Handle is now streaming on Netflix



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Netflix’s ‘Too Hot to Handle’ Review: This Is the Funniest, Least Sexy Reality Show About Sex


If I found myself cringing every time some shirtless and bikini-clad contestant on Too Hot to Handle kissed, it wasn’t because of their awkward “banter” or even the fact that they were throwing away thousands of dollars for the privilege. It was undoubtedly because I watched the Netflix reality dating series deep into quarantine, where even the idea of shaking someone’s hand was already out of the question.

Despite the almost other-worldly effect this had on my viewing experience, there’s something inherently now and inevitable about this show. Centered around a group of 20-something hots, the Too Hot to Handle retreat is governed by an A.I. cone named LANA who puts the contestants through various challenges, sends them on dates, and punishes them if they fail to remain chaste: that means no kissing, no sex, and no masturbating if they want to win $100,000 at the end of the retreat. When any of the contestants breaks the rules (and yes, they do…a lot) she calls them out in front of everyone and brings the pot down based on the infraction.

“[A.I.] is literally everywhere around us. It’s kind of governing us, it’s taking over,” showrunner and executive producer Viki Kolar tells me over the phone on a group call with Jonno Richards, the show’s executive producer and managing director of Talkback, the production company behind Too Hot To Handle.

“You’re used to hearing A.I. in terms of algorithms and research and listening and advice,” Richards agrees. “It just sort of all kind of fitted together.”

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However, despite the LANA of it all, there’s actually not a lot of proven psychology behind the Too Hot to Handle method of building stronger, healthier relationships by abstaining from sex…but that was never really the main point of the series. In fact, the idea for this social experiment, as Richards repeatedly calls it, started from an episode of Seinfeld called “The Bet,” where each character competes to see if they can avoid masturbating. Spoiler alert: They all fail, not unlike some of Too Hot to Handle’s contestants.

“We wanted to do something that was funny while it was a reality show,” Richards says. “You put obstacles in people’s way and push their buttons in a way that could be comedic, but at the same time are trying to help them come together through that. A sort of romantic comedy, I guess, is what we’re trying to get to.” They definitely got the comedy part down. Aside from the relationships and friendships that form between this group of players—and there is at least one couple that becomes genuinely ship-worthy—this show is just damn funny.

I don’t know if it’s the number of times the word horny was said within each episode, the blinking, judgmental robot, or the socially stunted contestants that make the show so gleefully addictive. Every single confessional with Francesca, Harry, Haley, Matthew, Sharron, Rhonda, Chloe, Kelz, Nicole, and David borders on parody, making it clear they’re at least somewhat in on the joke and it’s okay to laugh. For example, Kolar tells me that Sharron wore a brace on his leg on the flight over to Mexico just to get through security faster. “He’s that type of person that comes up with insane kind of ways of just getting through life,” she says. “I was like, ‘I love him even more.’” Shockingly, you might find yourself rooting for these people too.

Still, maybe it’s narrator Desiree Burch that sets the show apart from similar reality TV series on Netflix and beyond. The voice-over non-host who seems to serve as the audience, chatting throughout the series as if she’s next to you on the couch, is honestly a great perk in the time of social distancing. She’s not always nice about the singles, but she’s always on point.

All I can truly say with conviction is that if Netflix has been using its own algorithm and data to build the most hilarious, binge-able reality dating show, they’ve succeeded with Too Hot to Handle and should probably stop now before they truly go off the rails.

Stream Too Hot to Handle on Netflix, here.

Emily Tannenbaum is a contributing writer and weekend editor at Glamour. Follow her on Twitter.





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Netflix's Too Hot to Handle Will Be the Next Love Is Blind


If there’s been a hole in your heart since Love Is Blind ended, I have a surprise: Netflix is dropping a new show, Too Hot to Handle, and it has serious shades of the blind-dating reality series that took the internet by storm.

And by that, I mean this new show is also of the reality variety and centers on a bunch of really hot people making really bad decisions. The premise of Too Hot to Handle is simple: A group of sexy singles move into a house together with a chance to win $100,000. But here’s the catch: They can’t have any sexual contact with one another. No hooking up, no kissing, no nothing. Every time they break this rule, the prize money amount drops. Think of it like your debit card balance after a wild night out. Every subtraction you see just represents a dumb decision you could’ve avoided.

Check out the trailer for Too Hot to Handle for yourself, below:

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“Your next reality dating obsession has arrived,” Netflix wrote about the show in an official description. “Too Hot to Handle puts to the test whether these hot singletons can find emotional connection without the sex. On the shores of paradise, gorgeous singles meet and mingle. But there’s a twist. To win a $100,000 grand prize, they’ll have to give up sex.”

This show is honestly the perfect mix of so many reality classics. You have the beachy vibes of Bachelor in Paradise and Love Island, the camera style of Big Brother, the competition element of The Challenge, and the soapy drama of…all those shows. I was starting to run out of things to watch during quarantine, so Netflix really came through on this one. How soon do you think the prize money will start dropping? You’ll have to watch and see, but I predict…quickly.

Too Hot to Handle premieres on Netflix April 17.



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I Want to Be a Hot Mom.


At my last haircut I told my stylist I wanted to go short, but like, French-girl short, not “mom hair” short. She nodded immediately. Because, of course, I don’t want mom hair. I left the salon feeling light and bouncy. When I texted my sister a selfie, she replied with, “yessss HOT mom!” There’s pressure on women at all stages of life to be attractive, but there’s something particularly gratifying about being perceived as not just a mom, but a hot mom.

My desire to be hot didn’t start after birth—I was told through Barbie, through animated mermaids, through the cool clique in high school, through the manic pixie dream girls of the early aughts, by everyone really, that to be hot was to be valuable. And by hot, I mean thin, conventionally very pretty, and sexually desirable. Catching a man’s interest was the pinnacle of mattering.

So I muddled through unfortunate wispy bangs and purple braces until I felt something close to hot in college. My boobs emerged and I wore tight tops from Wet Seal. My look has changed through the years (Abercrombie & Fitch clone, Anthropologie boho, quirky boys’ T-shirts from Goodwill to communicate that I was “chill”), but my goal was always the same: to be whichever version of “hot” the guy I was with wanted. Eventually, all this effort led to an engagement, which led to a wedding, which led to my ultimate performance of hotness: blushing bride. Everyone told me I was beautiful, and I stuffed myself with external validation until I felt full.

In my first trimester of pregnancy, I frantically Googled “cute bump,” “bump vs. bloat,” and “celebrity maternity style.” Olivia Wilde was aspirational. Beyoncé was otherworldly. “Have you popped yet?” asked my cousin over the phone, to which I would woefully respond in the negative. When my soft belly finally turned hard and round, I felt relief, and the relief was justified when people said, “You can’t even tell you’re pregnant from the back!” Or “You’re so tiny!” Or “All belly!”

Me, during pregnancy.

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My “not mom hair” haircut.

Writer Ashley Fetters wrote about mom jeans (and how adding “mom” to anything renders it immediately uncool) for The Atlantic, referencing the famed SNL sketch which includes the line: “I’m not a woman anymore. I’m a mom.” And while the sketch is hilarious, I think it rings eerily true for many of us. Recovering from childbirth in the hospital, the nurses all called me “mom” as if my real name—my real self—was no longer relevant.



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TLC’s New Show ‘Hot and Heavy’ Is Receiving Immediate Backlash


In a reality-TV landscape full of revenge bodies and weight-loss challenges, few shows capture the nuance of what it’s really like to be a fat woman in America today—even fewer if you consider dating shows. TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life is one of the few that actually subverts shallow, reductive tropes, but the network just announced a new show that feels like a thousand steps backward.

I woke up this morning to the Twitter-sphere ablaze over an upcoming TLC show called Hot and Heavy. The title made me think I was getting some steamy makeout show. But as I began to read the tweets and show description, my pervy excitement quickly morphed into anger. Hot and Heavy, I learned, is a reality show about hot guys dating fat girls in what the show calls “mixed-weight” relationships.

I, like many others on the internet, immediately felt disgusted. What the hell is a mixed-weight relationship? The term itself is highly problematic. It suggests that all romantic partners are the same weight with identical body types, which is obviously absurd. Aren’t all relationships mixed-weight relationships? Why do we feel the need to specifically highlight a show about fat bodies and thin bodies? Are we as entertained by tall people dating short people? Or brunette people dating blond people? No. We don’t make television shows about the trials and tribulations of someone who is 5’5″ dating someone who is 6’1″. So why are we endlessly obsessed with the dynamic of fat women actually being loved?

I was particularly horrified by portions of the trailer featuring the characters Joy and Chris. Their relationship is introduced with Chris saying, “I love every inch of Joy,” and then quickly adding, ”There’s lot of inches to love,” while he laughs—making an expression of love a joke at her expense. She awkwardly laughs, gives him a side-eye, and under her breath says, “Ew, what?” It’s followed by a clip of Chris’s friend berating the couple asking, “Is it a sexual thing?” implying that Joy could only be loved if she was being fetishized. But the worst part was the camera crew following along as Chris’s friends bring him to a strip club to “try and persuade him to like other girls.”

“He could get any girl he wants and ends up being with Joy,” his friend says in shock.



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Tyler Cameron From ‘The Bachelorette’ Is Both Hot and Funny, and It’s Just Not Fair


Chiseled face? Check. Abs? Double check. It’s no secret that Tyler Cameron, the hunky contractor from this season of The Bachelorette, is easy on the eyes, but what’s even better is that he has the personality to match. That one-two punch has made him a favorite among Bachelor Nation.

The 27-year-old has been taking to his Twitter account lately to fire off some amazing jokes, and let me tell you, this guy is funny. Like, actually funny. Like, “how is it possible that Hannah is even considering any other men this season” funny. Let’s recap some of Tyler Cameron‘s best work, shall we?

See, these kinds of quizzes aren’t just for the fans. While it’s hilarious on its own that he even took this quiz, it’s a double whammy that he ended up with Luke P. (Also, I definitely need to start using “Christmas treeing” as a phrase in my everyday life.)

Luke P. throwing bologna at Garrett may go down as one of the most ridiculous scenes in Bachelorette history, but Tyler’s tweet makes it that much better.

We really didn’t mind this look, but it’s nice to see that he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Simple and to the point. A man of few words, but those words are gold.

It doesn’t take a body language expert to see what’s going on here.

It certainly would’ve made for good TV.

Pretty sure Tyler has also worn a few different shades this season as well….

Chicken nuggets may have gotten more air time this season than some of the actual contestants.

I mean, this is actually a fairly accurate representation.

Two glasses is all it takes.

I guess it’s now officially official: Tyler is basically perfect.

Stefanie Parker is a writer who runs the Bachelor-themed Instagram account She’s All Bach.





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