[imagesource: Joel Anderson/ITV]

Yes, the money-making machine is back for another season.

Say what you want about the original UK Love Island (we will, in a minute), but at least the production quality is better than the total trainwreck that was Love Island SA.

Small mercies.

The first episode of the seventh series aired last night, and those that watched it missed out on the high drama of the Euro 2020 matches.

Then again, if you don’t watch the reality show, you might miss out on enlightened conversations regarding Brexit and Europe’s capital cities.

The first takes are now in, including The Guardian’s zero-star review:

This year’s unmotley crew of buff, bronzed beauties, each burnished outwardly to a high shine by sun tan oil, and inwardly by moderate-to-severe narcissism, have all been ordered straight from the Instagram shop. Let the sexual humiliation games begin!

Season seven is attempting to place a greater emphasis on mental health, with a ‘welfare team’ on the set throughout filming.

In recent times, two former contestants have taken their own lives, along with the host of the first five seasons, Caroline Flack.

But the “lucratively internationally franchised” show must go on, with Lucy Mangan saying “I hate myself but I can’t stop”:

That’s the show’s secret, of course. It works on you like a drug. However uninterested you are at the beginning, before the first hour is up you are hooked…Should we watch? Are we complicit in untold miseries if we do?

…Please, somebody, help.

We all have our guilty pleasures, after all.

Let’s meet the cast:

I think I’ve developed a headache.

Over on The Telegraph, Susannah Goldsbrough was more forgiving, with a three-star review trumpeting the return of the “stomach-churning sexathon”:

Enlightened it is not but addictive it remains: there’s something stomach-churningly fascinating about watching human beings who know absolutely nothing about each other beyond their swimsuit colour preference having to publicly declare their romantic preferences…

Will this years’ contestants have the personalities to sustain a season’s worth of small-screen spice? Will the boys start to remember the girls’ names? Should any of us be watching this show at all? I would hazard that a tidy slice of tonight’s viewers will be tuning back in tomorrow to watch the Islanders crack on – and find out.

Everyone’s asking if they should watch or not, but you don’t make it to a seventh season unless you’ve tapped into something that resonates with certain people.

You might have gathered that I’m not one of them, but as we continue to live amongst the rubble of the past 18 months, I’ll try my best not to judge your form of escapism.

Whatever gets you through all of this.

[sources:guardian&telegraph]