Netflix’s Love is Blind creator is getting some thoughts off his chest about the show’s “chaotic” live reunion just months after its delayed premiere left fans reeling and waiting for hours.
What was supposed to be an evening filled with spilling tea about season four’s Seattle couples quickly turned sour after the show’s first-ever live reunion slated for April 16 didn’t air until a staggering 19 hours after its scheduled premiere due to technical difficulties.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, creator Chris Coelen opened up about the reunion misfortune, revealing that he was at home at the time, feeling completely distressed as he watched the unexpected hiccups unfold.
“I lost my mind,” Coelen admitted, recounting his reaction as the delay ensued. “I was sitting in front of my TV like, ‘What is happening? Give me the updates. What’s going on?’”
Revealing that “it was Netflix’s idea to do a live reunion,” Coelen said he wasn’t at the studio when the reunion was filmed, even though he previously had reservations about whether the streamer could pull off the highly-anticipated special.
“It was Netflix’s idea to do a live reunion. They came to us, and we all had some misgivings about it,” he added in the interview with THR published on Tuesday.
Coelen founded the production company Kinetic Content in 2010, which created several reality dating shows, including Love is Blind and Married at First Sight, but he noted that the reunion was produced by Michael Davies, who had, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Coelen explained, “Normally in that situation, I’d be in the control room. I’d be in the host’s ear. And I wasn’t. But I know a lot of people put a lot of effort into it.”
Instead, just like LIB fans worldwide, he had to rely on updates throughout the night as Netflix worked away at fixing the issue.
In the end, Coelen found a silver lining in the hours-long mess of a finale.
“Ultimately, the great thing that came out of that night was it showed how much significant interest there is in ‘Love Is Blind.’ I really appreciated that,” he said.
But as for whether Coelen thinks the beloved dating show should ever have a reunion again, the creator says there would have to be a “real benefit” for that to ever happen again.
“Would we do a live reunion again?” Coelen asked himself. “Possibly, but what is the benefit? I’d have to think about it and obviously talk to my partners about the real benefit of going live. A quick turnaround, sure, but we’d have to analyze if there’s a real benefit. And if we were to do it again, I would most likely be there.”
He added, “Does it really matter if it’s live or not? Whether that registers with the average audience, I don’t know.”
The reunion’s technical glitches weren’t the only point of contention for viewers at the time.
Once the finale finally aired, fans hit Twitter to complain over the slew of cringy moments that rattled the reunion by virtue of the show’s longtime hosts, Nick and Vanessa Lachey.
“LIB” fans were so unsettled by the couple’s biased treatment of some cast members at the reunion that a Change.org petition began making rounds on the internet to remove the Lacheys as hosts.
The petition has garnered just a little over 45,000 signatures as of this writing.
Seasons 1-4 of Love is Blind are now streaming on Netflix.