I was thoroughly surprised when I first realised Heartbreak Island was a wholly New Zealand created show, clearly riding along the massive wave which UK series, Love Island and its international spin-offs, has created. Hosted by Matilda Rice (former winner of The Bachelor) and Mark Dye (former Newstalk ZB talkback host. Also, he locked himself in a toilet while filming this?), the new dating/Survivor-esque show has come to an end on TVNZ, and as an avid fan of picking apart reality television I was excited to watch and see how the show fared within this incredibly popular genre. As the name suggests, Heartbreak Island features a cast of single men and women living together on a Fijian Island, faced with partnering up, looking for love and competing in challenges to win the cash prize of $100,000.

Format-wise, Heartbreak Island is a little clunky. The rules of the show and all of its jargon like the “Passion Play” or “Switch and Ditch,” not to mention an unseen, pre-filming social-media-style-match-up is dumped on viewers without much of a briefing. There is also a serious lack of an explanation as to how the couples actually win the money. Eventually this boils down to a split in the series, the first half allowing for dumping and swapping partners while hunting for the perfect match, and the second half focusing on competing in challenges where the weakest performers are gradually eliminated until one pair remains. Along the way there is also the addition of the “Disruptors” — contestants who are brought onto the island later to shake things up and encourage players to ditch their mate for someone potentially better.

This big question that Heartbreak Island ponders is whether you’re on the show “for love or money?” But really, this just isn’t explored to its full potential. The way the challenges work means competitors progress in the game by having a partner they can communicate well with, and that complement each other in athletic and puzzle-type obstacles. Though these might be qualities of a successful romantic relationship, the “love” element of the show is just not as necessary as we want it to be: there really is no benefit in sticking with someone you like if you aren’t great together in the challenges.

But let’s be honest, the majority of the audience for Heartbreak Island are not (unlike me) looking for a well thought out, interesting, experimental and strategic dating show. They want romance, betrayal and all the drama that comes with it. And in this regard, the show delivers. Aside from a fair amount of awkward flirting and uncomfortable, forced interaction, there are some really juicy moves made and some shocking moments that foster great trashy entertainment. Because the contestants are predominantly Kiwi, there are a lot of cringe-worthy and too close to home moments which break the illusion of reality television and it all just becomes too real, but for the most part Heartbreak Island will satisfy reality TV fans.

I must now sheepishly confess that before watching Heartbreak Island I had never seen its clear inspiration; the massive UK hit series Love Island. I considered the only way to get a fair impression of Heartbreak was to chug through the latest season of Love Island. So, an unhealthy amount of binge-watching later, here are my thoughts on the two shows side by side.

Controversially, I imagine, I have to say that in many ways Heartbreak gives us what we want from Love Island a lot more efficiently. Though both air multiple episodes a week, I feel Heartbreak provides far more structure and entertainment per show on average. As a beginner, I found Love Island very hard to follow in terms of how people became coupled up, who was going to be eliminated and how, and what was at stake during challenges.

On the other end of the spectrum is something as heavily structured as Bromans (see my review here for more), but there is a much more obvious sense of improvisation in Love Island, as it’s only when things start to get dull that someone will go on a date or a new batch of singles will enter the villa. Heartbreak Island sets a certain tone from the beginning and sticks to it, whereas Love Island begins with a LOT of sitting around and chatting to each other, which, especially early on when you aren’t invested in anyone, can be tedious.

In saying that, Love Island certainly heated up in the drama department and eventually surpassed Heartbreak in entertainment value. It may have been 20 or so episodes in, but I started to realise why so many people are hooked on Love Island. It just took too long to get there for me. Regardless, Love Island is clearly a more refined show, and the reality series that Heartbreak wants to be when it grows up.

TVNZ has already sent out its casting call for a second season of Heartbreak Island, and although I won’t be throwing my hat into the ring, I will be happy to watch it. I’m also very invested in Love Island (finally), and excited to see how it all pans out for my favourite couples. However, I couldn’t finish this review without mentioning my absolute favourite dating reality, MTV’s Are You The One. This undoubtedly has everything you could want, which of course includes substantial drama and great characters, but more importantly, a clever format, in which the entire cast win or lose a million dollars together. It was to my great excitement that MTV have just announced the 7^th season of AYTO to begin airing in August, and after all the preparation I’ve been doing I couldn’t be more ready.

All in all, either you’re a reality TV lover or hater, and any one of these three shows will give you the fix you’re after. I think my main point here is that Heartbreak Island managed to hold its own a lot better than I had expected, and I think it is well worth a watch to likeminded viewers.

Show Heartbreak Island

Network TVNZ (NZ)

Release Date 11 June – 11 July 2018

Binge Time 11 hrs 10 mins