10 seasons in, why is Love Island utterly incapable of giving us a good reunion episode?

You may scoff at this, but dedicating yourself to a season of reality TV is a big investment. It’s an investment of your time and of your emotions. If you aren’t going to get properly invested, why bother in the first place? This is especially true with Love Island – a show that runs for two months and airs six nights a week, sometimes for an hour and a half a night. With Love Island, despite its detractors sometimes fairly saying otherwise, you literally are watching people get feelings for each other, betray each other and potentially have their heart broken in real time. You have to be pretty icy inside to not get sucked into it all. With all that in mind, of course Love Island every year has a reunion episode, and 2023 is no different. It should be an hour of drama, catching up and airing unfinished business and grievances – and we should be gobbling the lot. But there’s no drama to scoff on – instead, like always, the Love Island 2023 reunion was completely and utterly boring. This year’s proved once and for all that this show is incapable of giving us good reunions. But why?

An hour and a half of filler

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I actually forgot the reunion was happening. I was in the midst of my first ever watch of David Cronenberg’s incredibly influential 80s sci-fi horror The Fly, where Jeff Goldblum plays a scientist who accidentally splices his DNA with a fly and ends up turning into a harrowing hybrid. It was as good as it sounds – I can’t believe I’ve wasted 27 years of life not watching it sooner. Do you know what was NOT as good as it sounds? The Love Island reunion for 2023. I paused Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis’ doomed romance for THIS?

As usual, the eye-watering one and a half hour length is filled with stuff you couldn’t care less about if you tried. Half of the runtime is filled with clips from the season. This season finished less than a week ago. Unless you have amnesia, the odds are pretty high that you remember what actually happened this season. But that doesn’t stop ITV 2 insisting on you watching what is essentially an episode of clips, recaps and best bits. We don’t need to be recapped! Just let us watch Mitch and Scott have a scrap!

All the Islanders play it coy

There’s something to be said about the branding of what it means to be a Love Islander in 2023. Nobody really is willing to rock the boat. Everyone is smiling, waving and wishing their alumni the best. Nobody is airing the shade they’ve willingly spilled on podcasts and vanishing Instagram stories.

Me too guys… Me too

Everyone wants to be the model influencer and keep it all amicable, but the truth is this is what makes boring reality TV. It is why Hulu, Drag Race and Married at First Sight are running rings around Love Island in the culturally relevant department right now. Nobody wants everyone to act holier than thou, we want a bit of carnage.

Just give us what we came for (Scott and Catherine updates x)

Look. We’re here for one thing. We want to know if Scott and Catherine are back on. It’s literally all we need to know. We hunger for it, our hearts yearn for it, we simply long for it. The producers couldn’t even be arsed getting them up on the couch. It is truly beyond belief – although it was funny that they had Elom sat on the same table as Sam lightly pressed them for some goss. If I was there, I’d have had a light in their face like I was interrogating them for high treason. Give. Me. The. Tea.

In fact, the only worthwhile thing about the Love Island reunions is watching the Islanders after on social media. They all obviously go out, and the Instagram stories and Insta lives are where the real reunion happens. Shout out to Ruchee for keeping us fed – she’s a real one.

It’s time for the Love Island reunion producers to just pack it up and go home, and never has this been truer than in 2023. I will say in its favour that at least we have Maya Jam hosting the proceedings now and not Laura Whitmore – who made the whole affair even more abysmal, potentially comparable to yanking your own teeth out with a pair of pliers. If you can’t organise a Love Island reunion that’s interesting on your own, just live stream the Islanders social media feeds onto ITV 2 for an hour and a half. Job done, broski.

For all the latest Love Island 2023 reunion news and gossip and for the best memes and quizzes, like The Holy Church of Love Island on Facebook.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• 18 memes about the Love Island reunion that prove we only care about Scott and Catherine

• The Islanders have let loose on TikTok after the villa, and their first posts are everything

• Catherine says she felt like her and Scott were ‘the couple to ruin’ on Love Island

Featured image via Jonathan Hurdle / Shutterstock.