Netflix's Too Hot to Handle Makes TV Sex Taboo Again

Let no one say Netflix can't spot a trend and saturate the market. A year ago, the streaming giant was resplendent with original comedies, dramas, docuseries, and cooking shows, but the one field they hadn't cracked was reality TV. Cut to January 2020 and the premiere of The Circle, the reality phenomenon where isolated strangers played Instagram with each other for several weeks, and at the end, the world's least threatening Jersey stereotype won a bunch of money. Since then, Netflix compounded its zeitgeist-y reality lineup with Love Is Blind, a new spin on the trashy TV dating series, which stipulated that would-be couples must meet and court without ever seeing what the other looked like.

And now, as we're all sitting captive in our homes, waiting eagerly for the next big social distraction, Netflix is debuting Too Hot to Handle, another dating show with aesthetic roots in shows like Love Island, Are You the One?, and even reaching as far back as Paradise Hotel. The twist on this one is that whereas on Love Is Blind you couldn't see your intended, on Too Hot to Handle, you can't touch them. And if if were that simple, if we were just making our way down the sensory deprivation checklist, that might actually be interesting. Unfortunately, Too Hot to Handle doesn't linger on a consistent premise long enough to be the fascinating, trashy reality distraction we all need it to be.

In the broadest of terms, Too Hot to Handle is Love Island with a nanny. Ten preposterously fit and attractive singles from "around the globe" (almost exclusively America and Britain) are thrown into a luxurious beach house and left to their own devices for a day. Since these people were selected with horniness as the main criterion, they almost immediately get to making out and dry humping on the chaise lounges. And that's when Lana, the show's all-seeing computerized oracle — kind of a snitchier version of Alexa — drops the hammer: all ten are competing for a share of a $100,000 prize pot, an amount that decreases every time any of them gets physically intimate. That means no kissing, no humping, and definitely no sex. First base, second base, third base, it's all verboten. Oh, and also no self-gratification. And Lana is watching.

At its most promising, the show re-introduces a bit of taboo into the idea of sex on TV. The last several decades have steadily demystified what you can and can't do sexually on TV. It's been anything-goes for years now. It used to be a headline when Big Brother cast members got caught doing it on the live feeds. Early-season Real World would spend months building up to two cast members kissing; cut to the late seasons when it was hookups ahoy on night one. As a concept, Too Hot to Handle would appear to be bringing back standards & practices.

The scenario is bursting with possibility, with any number of directions the show could have gone. With nothing left to attract each other but their personalities, we could have gotten a quasi-comedy where the cast becomes socially hobbled and suddenly repulsive to each other. Or perhaps a reality version of Seinfeld's "The Contest" where the contestants who last longest without breaking the rules inherit the prize money, so they spend the whole season trying to tempt the others into transgressing.

But no. Because by episode three, the contestants have figured out that the penalties for transgressions ($3,000 for a kiss; $16,000 for what sounds like a night's worth of manual penetration under the covers) essentially turn the show into a high-priced menu for sex acts. And despite Lana playing camp counselor, devising activities for the singles to partake in designed to make them all more mature and capable of emotional intimacy, they seem most interested in ordering makeout sessions like they're perusing the Extra Value Menu at Horny McDonald's.

If that all sounds kinda cool (and I can see how it might), don't get your hopes up. Whereas a show like The Circle could make a dull premise sing with compelling cast members, Too Hot to Handle goes the opposite way, casting ten mildly distasteful people with little to no personalities to speak of. There's six-pack-sporting Sharron, who says the thing he's most proud of is his penis. There's Jesus-haired Matthew, who dreams of "spreading [his] seed" all over the world. There's gym-bodied David, who remarks that having a British accent is "like having a 12-inch dick." The closest to a compelling character is sour-faced Haley, who by episode 3 is grousing that she hates everybody in the house and wishes there were a vote-out component so she could go home.

Instead, we're asked to invest in the "romance" between dull bozos Harry and Francesca, spurred on by an unseen narrator who's doing a poor man's Michelle Buteau impersonation from The Circle. It doesn't work. Nor does the notion that a reality dating show with a no-touching theme is exactly what we need in these social distancing times. The show even fails at that, since watching these young dummies flaunt their disregard for the rules will only make you think of those heedless Spring Break revelers who couldn't just stay home and help flatten the curve. So much for pandemic escapism.

The bottom line is that Too Hot to Handle could have gone two ways: better, more memorable characters, or a stricter, more challenging "game" set up around the no-touching rule. Instead, the show lands in a no-man's-land of dull personalities playing out a weak concept. We deserve more, and Netflix has shown it can do far better.

All 8 episodes of Too Hot to Handle drop today on Netflix.

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Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.