Love Island and looksmaxxing: how are male beauty standards changing? – podcast
My fire pit moment: trying out Love Islanders’ secondhand style
February 2024
Reality checked
‘A shallow new low’: Love Island All Stars is a miserable attempt to rewrite history
Why do contestants seemingly act as though their real lives don’t exist? And why are past series’ tragedies jarringly ignored? This show’s airbrushing of reality is the nail in the coffin
January 2024
TV tonight
TV tonight: Jodie Foster’s no-nonsense investigator joins the True Detective canon
The Guide newsletter
The Guide #121: Just when I thought I was out on Love Island, All Stars has pulled me back in
December 2023
‘Viewers enjoy seeing people suffer’: reality TV’s desperate struggle to be more ethical
‘I was in tears, angry, emotional’: do reality TV shows use sleep deprivation to trigger meltdowns and showdowns?
October 2023
Love Island star has had ‘serious conversations’ about becoming MP
Big Brother is back in a new era of reality TV. But can these shows be ‘kinder’ – and still give us the drama we crave?
Fiona Sturges
September 2023
All hail My Mum, Your Dad: great TV – and Britain’s overdue love letter to older, single parents
Gaby Hinsliff
It’s great that rather than treating fiftysomethings falling in love as a freak show, the series celebrates families’ tender rites of passage, says the Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
‘Middle-aged Love Island’ is here – a concept with an obvious flaw
Zoe Williams
My Mum, Your Dad switches the focus from twentysomethings to their parents. If they are anything like as buff as their kids, they’re bound to be boringly disciplined, writes Zoe Williams
Flashback
Blazin’ Squad look back: ‘We needed chaperones – it wasn’t great for our credibility’
The Chingford rap crew on teen fame, atrocious hair and the power of Love Island
August 2023
You’d have to cut off my electricity to stop me tuning in to an ‘older Love Island’
Barbara Ellen
‘I’d never experienced an orgasm’: Yewande Biala on her journey into female pleasure
‘I got a flat white at Harold’s!’: the rise and rise of dubious replica TV ‘experiences’
‘I don’t like people feeling sorry for us’: inside the world of TV’s disabled dating shows
The Guide newsletter
The Guide #98: From Love Island to Marvel, culture’s once-dominant forces are on the wane
Science Weekly
Summer picks: what’s the reality behind the ‘Love Island smile’? – podcast
July 2023
Face fillers, fire pits and the ick – how 10 series of Love Island have shaped UK culture
Observer TV reviews
The week in TV: Love Island; The Traitors: Australia; Celebrity Save Our Sperm; Heat – review
