I’m a reality TV expert – here’s why Love Is Blind UK NEEDS a ‘bad guy’ like Sam

I’M a reality TV expert – here’s why Love Is Blind UK NEEDS a ‘bad guy’ like Sam

“Boring brown eyes,” Sam said to his new fiancée as he gazed into them upon meeting her for the first time. Wow. What a charmer! Those looking for love around the country must’ve been thinking, “phwoar, where can we get ourselves a guy like that?”

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I am of course joking – about the latter half that is – but the first part about the eyes? Yes, Love Is Blind UK star Sam Klein really said that as he met lucky Nicole for the first time. He then proceeded to say “I think I love you” as they parted ways. Who said romance is dead, right?

Ever since fans of the reality show clapped eyes on Sam they had it in for him – he’s been coined a producer plant, a villain, ‘cringe’ after saying he’s after the “best wife for his kids,” and the privately educated product designer manager even gave us what viewers have coined one of TV’s most awkward scenes ever, as he met fiancée Nicole for the first time after proposing to her through a wall. As you do.

But isn’t this villainous behaviour just what reality TV needs? Without the ‘bad guy’ surely the show wouldn’t have the same pull.

It wouldn’t have people making TikTok videos about it, or blowing up the WhatsApp group with “guess what he’s gone and done now.” The villain keeps us interested, they keep us coming back for more, and Sam isn’t the first to take on the role.

Recently, the reality TV king that is Joey Essex embraced his next challenge – Love Island. And, between snogging Nicole, pieing Grace and doing Sean dirty, he, too, very quickly took on the role of show villain, whether he intended to or not.

Joey, like Love Is Blind’s Sam, was relentlessly accused of being a producer plant, someone thrown in to stir up drama. And he was just the tonic to make a show that needs new life breathing into it interesting.

Without Joey, I have to admit I’d have struggled my way through Love Island’s most recent series. And, after blasting him online from all angles, once he’d gone from the villa most people actually agreed that he’d “carried the season.”

And reality TV has always had a villain – from the early days of Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag in The Hills, to Selling Sunset’s Christine Quinn and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Lisa Rinna.

They may be TV ‘bad guys,’ but while it’s easy to root against them, there’s no denying they all bring a much needed energy to reality telly. We sit on our sofas, shaking our heads and wishing them gone, but when they do go we find ourselves hoping for their return. Make it make sense?

At the end of the day, reality TV provides an escape from the everyday and producers want to feed that escape with something addictive for viewers to get their teeth into. What’s needed for that? A villain is.

It’s a tale as old as time – the hero and the villain. James Bond would’ve been pretty rubbish without the likes of Dr. No and Lyutsifer Safin, just as Harry Potter would’ve been dull without Voldermort. Not that I am comparing Joey or Tom to the latter, but you get the gist.

Both Joey and Tom have brought a breath of fresh air to a stale premise. We’ve seen people fall for each other in Love Is Blind’s pods before, we’ve seen people pull each other for chats and couple up on Love Island, but it’s the Joey’s and Toms of TV who give us our story lines.

During his time on Love Is Blind, Tom said he’s “just looking for a girl to love him,” a line that he has taken straight from the movie Notting Hill and badly rehashed. In fact, it became apparent quite quickly that he was using stock phrases to win over the ladies – and we all loved to see it. Don’t tell me you didn’t.

And you’ve got to remember we are seeing what the producers of the show want us to see. A snapshot of what really goes on, in which we can be sold a story about someone based off an edit to give us the villainous character.

Tom himself has said he doesn’t think the edit has worked at all in his favour. Producers can pick a ‘baddie’ and carefully select material from filming to represent this. You might call it unfair, but surely you could also say that in signing up to these shows you’re putting yourself out there for your image to be manipulated in a certain way by producers.

And the ‘villains’ are the ones laughing at the end of it all anyway, as more often than not they come out as the true stars of the show. Big Brother’s Nasty Nick got disqualified but fame still came a’ calling, and he ended up appearing on the likes of Through The Keyhole, GMTV and Big Brother’s Bit On The Side.

And let’s face it, the ‘bad guys’ of reality TV often having more going for them than the heroes, and there’s always a certain intrigue to them and a case of the worse they are, the more we love them. The more villainous, the more we give a standing ovation. And if they last a long time on their respective shows, we strangely come to love them and find ourselves longing to see more of them when the series wraps.

When I think of some of Love Island’s recent series, it’s the actions of the ‘bad guys’ I remember, like Michael Griffiths dumping Amber for Joanna, and Jonny Mitchell breaking series hero Camilla’s heart. I’m still hiding behind my sofa over that one!

So here’s to the ‘bad guy,’ long may they last! And Sam, I hope you find your leading lady… I’m just praying for your sake that her eyes aren’t “boring and brown.”

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