Advice from the expert. Andy Cohen used his hosting experience at Bravo to weigh in on what went wrong with Netflix’s first live Love Is Blind reunion special.
“Live reunions are a very bad idea,” the executive producer, 44, said on the Monday, April 17, episode of his radio show, SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live, referring to the planned season 4 reunion for Love Is Blind. “There is a reason we don’t do reunions live.”
Netflix made headlines on Sunday, April 16, after users couldn’t watch the season 4 special at its advertised time. The episode, which was set to premiere at 8 p.m. ET, was ultimately filmed for a live audience and uploaded the following day.
“To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon … we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned,” the company tweeted about the technical difficulties. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.”
Cohen, for his part, explained why the Love Is Blind live reunion was doomed from the start.
“There is a reason [reunion episodes are] edited down. We could talk about a topic on a reunion taping for 25 minutes, for 45 minutes before really getting to the heart of something,” he said on Monday. “Reunion shows are almost like a fishing expedition. You’re talking about different topics [and] you don’t know what’s going to land [or] what’s going to hit. By the way, a lot of times people will have incredible one-liners that no one in the room really heard because someone on the other side is talking. So we go through the footage, we hone it, we edit it [and it] is finally shaped.”
According to the TV host, the priority should be the quality and not the speed.
“There are ebbs and flows. You can’t say, ‘OK, we’re going to do it tightly in an hour.’ Sometimes it takes longer to get someone revved up emotionally,” Cohen continued. “By the way, you want them to be feeling the most intense feelings that they can about the seasons. That takes time to shape and craft. There’s an art here. You can’t just bang it out and say, ‘OK, we’re doing it from 9:00 to 9:59 and that’s when the reunion’s going to be.’”
The official account for Bravo poked fun at the delay as well, tweeting on Sunday, “We would never keep you waiting for a Reunion 😉.”
Meanwhile, Blockbuster addressed their competitor who put them out of business. “Remember renting vhs from us. You could start it on time no problem … This is what we get,” the brand wrote via Twitter.
After the Love Is Blind reunion was postponed, Vanessa Lachey took to social media Sex-confessions/”>to address the fan backlash.
“I want to take a moment, on this platform, to acknowledge the intense vulnerability that goes into our show(each season). I’m so proud of this cast and their willingness to put themselves out there. It wasn’t easy and this has been a LONG process to get to the reunion,” the actress, 42, who hosts the show alongside husband Nick Lachey, wrote via Instagram on Monday. “Please keep in mind online (and in life) that ‘words have weight.’ What you say to someone you don’t know (and don’t know the whole story to) can have a lasting affect on them… in many different ways.”
The reunion special features interviews with Brett Brown, Tiffany Pennywell, Kwame Appiah, Chelsea Griffin, Bliss Poureetezadi and Zack Goytowski. Paul Peden, Micah Lussier, Irina Solomonova and Marshall Glaze were also present. Josh Demas and Jackelina Bonds, however, participated via video chat.
Love Is Blind‘s season 4 reunion is currently streaming on Netflix.