Stan has officially taken the plunge into reality dating shows, announcing a steamy new series called Love Triangle.
Six singles will be challenged to find love without knowing what their potential partners look like. They will be able to text and call their matches as they get to know each other, but they won’t know what the person they’re messaging looks like until they choose someone to go on an IRL date with.
The show has some heavy hitters behind the scenes, with Endemol Shine Australia director of content Tara McWilliams and Nine Network executive producer John Walsh – both names behind Married At First Sight (MAFS) – taking the wheel.
Mediaweek spoke to McWilliams and Walsh about bringing Love Triangle to life ahead of its October 6th premiere on Stan.
Despite the show coming from the creative minds behind MAFS, the pair are quick to make the point that Love Triangle is a whole new ball game.
McWilliams: “The show’s premise doesn’t have the pressure of marrying someone. Marriage is such a huge commitment, whereas what we’re saying here is that modern dating is broken – so let’s give them a different experience with dating.
“One of the key differences is that at the beginning, they have a choice. In most dating shows, there is no choice – you get told ‘here are the people cast, and here’s whose affections you’re vying for’. We gave them a choice that they had to live and die by.”
Walsh: “MAFS has a particular construct within the experiment. This show replicates all the experiences of modern dating – there is slow burn, no burn, instant attraction, all the things that happen when a relationship starts. Then things will implode or explode.
“With MAFS, you have to work through that relationship in the confines of the experiment, whereas this could go in all sorts of ways.”
The six singles who have taken the leap on Love Triangle come from all walks of life. No matter what their background is – all the way from having spent 10 years single, to having just divorced after a 10-year-long marriage – McWilliams says that the thing they have in common is authenticity.
McWilliams: “We wanted people that were really genuine about wanting to be in a relationship and find a partner. We were looking for people that had a very negative experience with modern dating – which wasn’t hard to find, to be honest!
“We wanted people that were coming in open to the idea of taking away their prejudice, to allow themselves to open up to meeting someone.”
Bringing people into a new format also meant that the singles had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
Walsh: “We’re doing the seventh season of MAFS. People come in, they think they know what MAFS is, and they try to play the game.
“It’s interesting having people come in with no preconceived idea of how they should behave or what the expectations of them are. They really are put in a dating situation, and then you follow the action.”
As the singles chat away with their potential partners over text, they begin to build an idea of what the person on the other end of the phone looks like. With the cast designed to reflect and represent the dating scene in modern Australia, a person who was perhaps assumed to be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed surfer may turn out to be someone of a totally different description.
Walsh: “I wouldn’t like people to rush to judgement and go, ‘she doesn’t like him, therefore, she’s racist or she’s prejudiced’. Often it genuinely is brand-new territory, and you’ll see that the people who stick with it find things out about themselves that they had never considered.
“I think it’s a great lesson for people watching: don’t judge everybody at face value, and don’t judge people by your preconceived notions of what you find attractive.”
It’s not the first time the pair have confronted the impact of race in dating head-on, though.
McWilliams: “Race is a tough issue, and no one really tackles it. It’s a very sensitive subject, especially in relationship shows.
“We tackled that in MAFS last season. It was a really delicate and sensitive issue to tackle, but we were led by Selena. It was her story, not a story we brought in. Yes, it can be uncomfortable for a lot of people to watch, but it’s an important conversation.
“That storyline on MAFS was really important, and I think the storylines that we cover and follow on Love Triangle around race and ethnicity are equally as important.”
With the series airing exclusively on Stan, Walsh says the pair have found themselves in a position where they aren’t having to work around broadcast or timeslot constraints.
Walsh: “MAFS is M rated during the week because we start at 7:30pm. On Sunday nights though, when we have the commitment ceremony and people are revealing the most about themselves, we are restrained by the PG rating because the show airs at 7pm. Sunday night MAFS is a little bit toned down for that reason.
“Stan doesn’t have those same timeslot regulations. It’s not a matter of, ‘let’s find the juiciest thing we can put into the show’ – what it allows you to do is follow the story and not have to pull yourself up short because it can’t play at 7pm on a Sunday. I think it’s a plus, it’s freeing from the producer’s point of view.”
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Top Image: Tara McWilliams and John Walsh