Paramount+’s Love ALLways puts a pansexual spin on the classic Bachelorette formula by casting TikTok star Lexi Paloma as a leading lady looking for love and assembling a cast of young men and women to vie for her affection. Helping Lexi out along the way are a pair of relationship experts, who also sorta have a stake in who ends up with the TikTok-lebrity.
Opening Shot: We meet Lexi via a series of slow panning shots of her backside, starting at her legs and moving north. Then we get a montage of Instagram bikini pics. Yep, this is a dating show, all right!
The Gist: Lexi Paloma is a TikTok sensation with 1.3M followers — and she’s looking for love! Or she’s looking for her own TV series. Honestly, one and the same. And since Lexi is pansexual, she’s looking for love in all combinations and all ways. Enter: dating experts Spicy Mari (@spicymari) and Anthony Recenello (@anthonyrecenello) who are brought in to provide Lexi with some sage advice. But they’re not just on board to help Lexi find true love. They also each have a squad of singles — or, excuse me, daters — that they’re helping find their way to Lexi’s heart.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Bachelor franchise is the most obvious point of reference here, but the relationship experts and them essentially drafting singles onto their “team” gives the show a real The Voice twist. Honestly, though, the fact that they’ve crammed a dozen singles into a perfectly average mansion and are really trying to sell the idea that all of them are instantly attracted to this one individual really gives off early ’00s, VH1 Rock of Love vibes. Or you could go over to fellow channel MTV for A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila, which had the bisexual host dating both men and women.
Sex and Skin: After the opening bikini montage, surprisingly little. Episode 1 is primarily concerned with Lexi speed dating all of the daters, and those dates take place in close proximity to — but not inside of — a swimming pool. But going off the previews for the season ahead, there’ll be plenty of swimsuit action in future episodes.
Parting Shot: One of the daters is told to move out, and they are really bummed because “the house is huge, Lexi is hot, there’s food here…”
Sleeper Star: Kalysta brings the laughs every time she’s on screen, be they sincere or the kind of awkward laughter you do when you really have no clue how else to react. A sample Kalysta quote: “My ex he would say, ‘crazy wasn’t in the fine print’ and I would say ‘crazy was in bold print’!”
Most Pilot-y Line: If you’re wondering what kind of relationship advice Lexi’s gonna get over the course of this series, here’s how Spicy describes her methodology: “I help people unlock the power of their passion so that they can attract their purpose-mate.”
Our Take: If you are an avid TV viewer in the year 2023, I have to imagine that you’ve already formed concrete opinions on dating shows and whether or not they are for you. If you aren’t already predisposed to turn these kinds of shows on and let the chaos wash over you, then Love ALLways isn’t going to change your mind. It is exactly what you think it is, albeit with a lower budget, much less impressive locale, much more clothing, and one other tweak that may even turn off diehard reality romance fans.
That tweak: the majority of the cast is under 21. The majority of them seem to be 19 or 20; Lexi herself is 19 years old. This won’t be a surprise if you’re familiar with production company AwesomenessTV’s Gen Z-focused modus operandi. But still, if you are not a member of Gen Z, watching Love ALLways might prove to be a deeply uncomfortable watch because everyone on screen, aside from a stray 22 and 23-year-old, looks like a child. That explains why the first person kicked out of the house was so bummed about losing access to all that food. Do you remember what it was like to be a college student? You’d go anywhere that had free food, even to the set of a reality TV dating show.
Because of how young everyone is, Love ALLways feels more like My First Trashy Dating Show made specifically for teens. The dating coaches feel way more like chaperones or hip high school teachers and the first party of the season serves cupcakes and cookies instead of the shots and margaritas that always go hand-in-hand with reality romance shows. Even the timed-for-Pride pansexual twist — while very, very welcome — feels incredibly tame when compared to the hedonism of the all-queer season of Are You The One? or the absolute chaos of The Ultimatum: Queer Love.
Even taking the fact that Love ALLways was definitely made for an audience that has yet to be spoiled by the antics of Too Hot to Handle’s sex idiots, the show’s format feels off. It’s weird that the relationship experts have teams, and therefore seem to be inclined to advocate for their daters regardless of whether they’re good for Lexi. And it’s not like these experts win something for pairing a dater with Lexi, either. It feels like an unnecessary wrinkle added to make the show feel slightly more unique. I think the fact that these daters are going to be the first reality romance cast to make messy decisions while hyped up on sugar is a unique enough twist.
Our Call: SKIP IT. It’s great that dating shows are finally acknowledging that romance can happen outside of the gender binary, but the show itself still needs to be entertaining.