Programs where people go looking for love have always been on Spanish television. From ‘Lo que necesitas es amor’ to ‘El diario de Patricia’, the unforgettable ‘Next’ or the tricky ‘Mujeres y hombres y viceversa’, the programming has been nourished to a great extent and for years by people who have believed that the best way to find someone special was in front of a lot of cameras and can be eliminated before the whole country. Now, ‘Para toda la vida’ wants to continue the tradition, but stripped of all sense of humor and self-parody, it becomes an excruciating bore.
Nobody wants to marry your son
A decade ago, Eyeworks, led by Luján Argüelles, revolutionized the world of dating programs with its own version of ‘The Bachelor’, taking away all the solemnity and replacing it with wild humor, almost bootleg edition and a perfect casting full of people who wanted to get in on the ‘Who wants to marry my son?’ game. The format reached its perfection in ‘A prince for Corina’, which replaced love with sound effects and he turned any moderately serious proposition into a fest of running gags, jokes, and fearless staging.
It is noticeable that behind the scenes of ‘Para toda la vida’ there is a group of people who they know that with the material they have they could perfectly make a new ‘Who wants to marry my son?’, but the orders from above oblige them to make it as sober, luxurious and aspirational as possible. And the mess is mounted, with a cast made up of half of bland posh and the other of quirky poshies who clearly belong on another show. And I don’t mean ‘UnREAL’, but it is inevitable to see it from another perspective.
The arrival of the singles, which in the Cuatro program was the best episode ever, became here a clone walk where each of the boys tried to cajole the single in question, Sheila, giving him all kinds of gifts, from golf clubs to foundation plans, appearing mounted on a horse, in a van or with a dog -clear winner of the night- on his arm. And what could have been entertainment of the first order became, by the magic of an edition that explicitly avoided rock and roll, in a drowsiness to see one and no more.
A prince for Sheila
Those responsible for the program said that ‘For life’ is like a Turkish novel, but from what has been glimpsed in this pilot it seems more like ‘The white lotus’ in an unintentional way. In an audiovisual moment in which most products mock the posh and the rich, Telecinco has decided, for some reason, to turn them into aspirational and not point out his vital absurdity at any time.
They pass through the Mediaset cameras businessmen, models, architects and professional athletes that leave gems like “They always tell me I’m a hottie”, “I’m calculating a statistical model for the possibility of a match between the two” or “I’m looking for a serious person because I’m a serious guy and I’m looking for a serious relationship”. I cannot emphasize more how sorry it is for me than the format take all this bravado seriously and don’t make a fool of them with Luján’s voice-over or a montage that emphasizes the ridiculousness of the matter.
The laughter that ‘Para toda la vida’ causes is always beyond the will of the reality show. Beyond some small post-editing detail like the music that goes out of tune when something goes wrong, absolutely no sense of humor. It is true that the contestants do not fight, insult or throw things at each other, but also that they are the prototype of the most boring Tinder profile in the world, superficial to the core and star in embarrassing moments for their four minutes of fame. Some even believe that they are going to marry Sheila half an hour after meeting her! It is shameful and, on the street, the most terrifying format that Telecinco has ever tried its luck with.
I’ve seen horrors you wouldn’t believe
As much as Sheila claims things like “I feel very protected among so much man”The image is gruesome: twenty gentlemen, practically all the same (dark-haired, bearded, tall, posh, in a gym) seeking the favors of a lady architect who also dabbles in jewelry design. It’s like the reality show that Isabel Preysler would design, as past as unreal, unconsciously self-parody, terrifying and with a background of toxicity that says nothing in favor of those who decided to bring it to Spain.
Yes, it is a format that has been in the United States for 19 seasons (to which must be added another 39 of its spin-offs, its specials and even a video game), but that does not make it any less terrifying or its images less disturbing: Looking for love has never looked so much like a raffle in which the jackpot is a piece of meat (and a couple of Deluxes). The tone does not adjust at all to the content that is consumed in Spain, much less in these times: it is a wrong basic program.
But a failed program can be, at least, fun. This is not the case with ‘Para toda la vida’, which is only entertaining to see the absolute familiarity and crazy love with which these singles treat Sheila after having known her for a couple of hours. In fact, in this first episode there are already kisses, forced revelations, uncomfortable questions and a lot of crushing with two concepts: the search for love and the friction between singles to get the grand prize of the program. I mean, her. If the intention was to create the most disturbing reality show of the year, we must congratulate them: they have more than succeeded.