Love Island is a zombie: time to kill this show forever?
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Do you remember when Love Island was the biggest show on television? I certainly do. It was all the way back in 2017, when I’d just moved to London, and that summer, it took over British pop culture in a water bottle-sipping, bright bikini-ed frenzy.
![[Marcel Sommerville Love Island All Stars S2 cast]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2025/01/07/14/09/Marcel-Sommerville.jpeg?trim=405,0,2891,0&quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
It was all anybody could talk about: its blend of slick visuals, scheduled drama and absolutely insane cast members shot it to the top of the national consciousness faster than you could say Big Brother. For a few years, it was everywhere - the cool new girl that everybody wanted to be associated with.
![[Curtis Pritchard]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2025/01/07/14/15/Curtis-Pritchard.jpeg?trim=405,0,2891,0&quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
Well, that cool girl has twisted an ankle in her sky-high stilettos and has fallen face-first into a puddle. The latest season of Love Island: All Stars is due to start on Monday, but does anybody care? The headlines are muted, the viewership fluctuates wildly. The 2023 series opener lost a million viewers compared to the previous year. Yes, the 2024 series surged back by 24 per cent, but that doesn’t change one thing: the drama is tired and the format hackneyed.
Whisper it: is Love Island over for good? Or should it be? These days, it seems like not even the contestants are that into the show anymore. When it first started, part of the charm was that the guys and gals who appeared in the villa weren’t really banking on it making them famous. They were just in it for a good time and some drama. As a result, we got messier people. Drink-chucking, sex on live TV, out-and-out brawls… things certainly weren’t boring, even if they were ethically and morally dubious.
