I have to give a big thumbs up to Sara Schmidt from ScreenRant for calling this one as it is. 90 Day Fiance is without a doubt one of the worst ideas that TLC has ever come up with and they’ve come up with some true stinkers over the years. If you tell me that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo or Sister Wives was worth the effort then congratulations, you have learned how to survive without a brain stem. With that in mind this show is kind of a waste of time since it not only makes immigration seem simple and in some ways preferred, but it definitely goes around the bend in thinking that a couple can come together and be completely happy in 90 days like magic. It’s possible, don’t get me wrong, but it’s such a rarity that to try and make it happen, to manufacture those heartfelt moments, is something that only reality TV producers would ever think might work. Even if they know they’re running a scam, which is likely, they know that they’re sucking people in with the whole idea of making it look and feel real, so hey, they’re happy because they’re getting paid.
Here are a few things however that might be used to make the show a little better and easier to believe, short of taking it off the air entirely.
5. Make sure there’s a connection.
Two and a half months is not long enough to guarantee that people are going to fall in love and be ready to spend the rest of their lives with one another. As I mentioned above it’s possible, but it’s also so rare that it doesn’t happen to more than a few people within several thousand at the very best, and that’s being extremely open-minded. On the show it would seem that people do make this connection but at the same time it would seem that some of them know so little about each other that they might as well have met only hours before show started filming. It’s important for these folks to know one another if they’re going to be exchanging vows eventually.
4. Tighten up the requirements to avoid any possible fraud.
The whole issue with immigration and all the rules that go into it aren’t suggestions, they’re laws that need to be followed and recognized even during the filming of the show. Temi Adebowale of Men’s Health speaks on this a bit. The various practices that some of the individuals on this show have been seen engaging in are skeptical at best and in some cases could actually be enough to get them and the show in a great deal of trouble. A lot of people will simply nod their head and forgive it since this is reality TV and there’s not a lot that could be called real and genuine, but at the same time the show needs to at least err on the side of the law to be somewhat respectable.
3. The show needs to require a solid business plan for each individual.
Coming to the US without a solid plan in mind and expecting to make it big as a star is definitely a dream that a lot of people have but it’s not one that’s entirely sustainable unless these individuals already have a following in their home countries. Even then it’s not a guaranteed stab at stardom, which means that those who want to come to this country really do need to have a plan in place if their dreams don’t pan out and they need some source of income. Hoping and dreaming might be the American way, but unless you’ve got a solid base to work from those hopes and dreams go up like smoke the moment one tries to apply them to reality.
2. It needs to move away from the immigration angle.
Since this is basically one of the biggest premises of the show it’s not bound to happen but it would help things out in a big way. There are plenty of people in this country trying to make a connection that don’t need to worry about their legal status and could still bolster the show. It’s not a call to ignore immigrants in any way, but it would definitely be better to focus on the people rather than the immigration status that they want to change since some people tend to get off on this idea while it’s enough to turn many off simply because it is such a huge issue at this point and time.
1. The show could focus on quality over quantity in a BIG way.
This could be said of just about any reality show since a lot of them simply want to push as many episodes as they can for people to watch and comment on since this is how they become and stay popular. But eventually, and this is a big hope, people will finally get tired of the constant crap that’s being fed to them via reality shows and will wake up to realize that what they’re being given is a load of issues that aren’t even real but are manufactured as Luis Gomez of The List reports, much like the sitcoms and other shows and movies that are actually entertaining. The only difference is the term ‘real’ that people seem to be drawn to.
Cancelling the show would be the best idea, but that’s just my opinion.
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