Netflix makes reality shows exclusively for the extremely online

Too Hot to Handle’s premise is hard to see as anything other than desperate. A collection of hot people are promised a hedonistic island getaway, then surprised with a big catch: a $100,000 prize, but only if they abstain from having sex. As a group of mostly accomplished sex-havers who meet each other in swimwear, this is the opposite of what they want, and the show doesn’t actually expect them to not hook up; they’ll just lose some prize money every time they get too horny. Whether or not the show is good doesn’t really matter, because like all of Netflix’s 2020 reality shows, it was made to go viral — and quality doesn’t really matter for that. A successful Netflix reality show isn’t about being entertaining. It’s about being online.

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