Recently, the 90 Day Fiance franchise has made some weird choices. And fans are noticing.
From rewarding the worst villains to airing two spinoffs back-to-back to greenlighting a new spinoff that no one asked for … what’s going on?
Simply put, a lot of viewers have expressed a growing distaste for the franchise — even if they still love some of the cast, old and new.
Why does 90 Day Fiance seem worse than it’s ever been?
Reality TV villains are sometimes as key to a show’s survival as they are to real TV — that is, scripted stories.
Sometimes, they’re fun to watch. Often, they’re fun to hate.
But 90 Day Fiance has been leaning in to certain malefactors way too much and for far too long.
There reaches a point where hating them as they deserve is just a moral obligation. It’s not fun anymore.
There’s a difference between someone who stirs the pot and a scumbag who makes the world a worse place just by being in it.
Real Housewives is an example of a show that knows how to have a fun villain. 90 Day Fiance seems to have lost sight of that.
And it feels like there are people who are counting on their infamy getting them to return for more seasons.
Up to a point, it makes sense. A polarizing cast member — one with many fans and many detractors — is ratings gold.
But if people just hate seeing someone, that’s not entertainment. And in the case of abusive relationships, like Angela and Michael, it’s difficult to watch.
On a fairly closely related topic, there’s the repetition of it all.
First up, we see a lot of the same people with the same partners who keep repeating the same mistakes.
They seem … stuck in an endless loop. We’re not talking about the regular ups and downs of a relationship before new milestones or before a breakup. Because nothing ever changes.
A big reveal and various twists and turns before an engagement are one thing. That’s life!
When it turns into a cycle that repeats itself, many viewers get sick of it.
On a scripted show, we’d be talking about how frustrating and insulting “character resets” can be. In real life? It’s sad, repetitive, and boring.
Speaking of repetition, we also have to talk about repeated storylines.
(We’re not complaining about Jenny and Sumit specifically … but what happened to them has now happened to others)
India is a country of 1.4 billion people. And yet we have now “met” three couples where an American woman dates an Indian man and has the exact same problems.
In each case, like Jen and Rishi on The Other Way Season 4 and like Kimberly and TJ on Season 5, the man has an overbearing family.
And, in each case, the American woman is totally unprepared to essentially surrender her adulthood and personhood for her (potential) new mother-in-law.
These aren’t identical couples, and their struggles aren’t identical.
But it’s repetitive and frankly insulting to India (a massive country full of many types of people).
And this is just one example of the “new couple, same problem” phenomenon.
And then we have the fame-seekers.
Obviously, anyone who shows up on reality television at all is someone who wants to be there. Or someone doing a favor for a friend. (Or a child who has no choice in the matter until they turn 18 or family court intervenes)
But there are people who are so clearly on the show in order to boost their aspiring careers as rappers or … children’s song singers … which feels inauthentic.
Speaking of authenticity, there are people who accuse the show of being “scripted.” It’s not, but we can understand the confusion.
The show casts a wide net and picks people who are going to have, for the most part, bonkers drama (with a few gems in the mix for balance). Producers might nudge things. And editing can be extremely deceptive.
Lately, maybe they’ve cast too many bonkers people. And some of the editing has been unjustifiably dishonest.
That said, we should note that 90 Day Fiance does not use a script.
Producers will lie to cast members, or at least know more than they reveal. They might even suggest things.
After all, most people have conversations in their living room. So producers will suggest that they repeat these chats for the cameras in more interesting locations.
That leads us into a related topic: the show simply does not treat cast members equally. And we’re not talking about screen time or pay.
90 Day Fiance: Before The 90 Days Season 5 included Alina Kasha and Mike Berk on the cast.
Alina’s old racist posts surfaced. The show fired her, editing her out of the rest of the season.
Mike Berk’s old social media posts also contained racism. And slurs. And bigotry in various forms.
But production didn’t disinvite Mike from the Tell All. Or purge the season of all footage of him.
Why? Fan outcry. Mike and Alina both deserved condemnation for truly despicable posts, but only one faced consequences.
Earlier, when we mentioned dishonest editing, we linked to our coverage from this spring from what editors did to The Other Way Season 4’s Tell All special.
Remember when Mahmoud pitched a fit, swearing and kicking trees and raging and refusing to film. We saw his wife crying.
At the time, it looked like Gabe Paboga, his castmate, was “to blame.” Because he’d asked a very normal question, which came up organically, about the intersection of religion and parenting.
Obviously, Gabe could not be “to blame” for Mahmoud’s behavior. Gabe is an amazing guy, but he’s not a wizard. He can’t control Mahmoud.
But the truth, which editors actively concealed from viewers, is that Mahmoud had said other cruel things to Gabe. Bigoted, transphobic, would-get-you-fired-from-any-reputable-job things.
That’s why things were so hostile between them. And that’s why Nicole was crying. But editors covered for Mahmoud … because he and Nicole were already set to appear on another season. That sucks.
Finally, the franchise has become way too bloated.
Normally, it’s hard to point out which spinoff doesn’t belong.
Even superfluous spinoffs like After The 90 Days and The Single Life both have their place, right?
Frankly, 90 Day: The Last Resort looks like it has condensed a lot of these ongoing problems into one microcosm.
The villain-infested Marriage Boot Camp style spinoff isn’t going to fix anyone’s relationships. It definitely ruined the vacations of some real people who were guests as the resort.
Look, maybe it will be a ratings hit. But it sure feels like more of Warner Bros Discovery CEO’s David Zaslav’s “slop” instead of, you know, good television.
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