All The Best Parts Of Love Island Have Been Cut This Year, But Why?

This year’s Love Island has been markedly different. The decision not to air sex scenes, the choice not to include certain challenges and most notably, the approach to focus on drama over banter has made the series a completely different viewing experience.

In last night’s episode, as we saw Belle Hassan and India Reynolds commentate on Anton Danyluk’s gym session, viewers were reminded of a simpler time. Back when the Love Island friendships were just as great to watch as the relationships, the scenes that gave us TV-gold from Kem Cetinay and Chris Hughes and the spontaneous group activities had viewers crying laughing.

This year, all that has changed, and every episode we see how clearly that turns viewers off the series. ‘How did this not make the main show?!’ one viewer tweeted alongside a video from Love Island Unseen Bits, to the tune of over 18,000 likes. The is one of many, many tweets that flood Twitter every Saturday night when Unseen Bits airs and people realise that actually, most of what we love about this show has been excluded this series.

It was all thanks to Ovie Soko, really, whom had little to no air time on the show before scenes of him on Unseen Bits had everyone falling in love with him. Now, his hilarious quirks crop up in most episodes, all thanks to viewers obsessing over him online. There’s the heartwarming video of him learning to swim, then the hilarious scene where Maura faceplants on her date with Curtis, and another of Amber and Belle throwing chicken fillets at each other in the dressing room – to name a few.

Considering how many pointless, vapid conversations we’ve seen where the same topics are discussed again and again to the same boring conclusion, it seems ridiculous that scenes like the above would be cut from a show meant to entertain the public. So why have they done it?

There seems to be two options. First, the producers may have chosen to focus heavily on the relationship drama this season given last year saw many complain of how monumentally boring most of the romantic connections were. That would make sense given the fact even the lie detector challenge failed to rouse any real excitement in 2018. Second, they actually want us all to get more excited about the Saturday night show. Because, realistically, its prime time viewing that was previously going unwatched.

The Weekly Hot List, as it was formerly called, was once our much-needed break from Love Island. Over exposure after nightly viewings six times a week meant that not only did we crave an evening free from the show, but we could pretend our social lives were still intact for the two months Love Island airs. All of this resulted in no real excitement about the Saturday night show, and likely that could have posed a problem for producers. Especially when you consider that Aftersun, their other follow-up show, too goes unnoticed by most viewers.

Perhaps it’s a mixture of both that explains why most of the banter has been cut this season, but one thing is for sure: ultimately, that decision has been to the detriment of the show. And, more importantly, the islanders, with many viewers left convinced that none of them were really that close for weeks before Unseen Bits became required viewing.

All we can hope for now is that producers respond to the endless requests for the old format to be returned, especially since next year our Love Island life-takeover will double in time. If we’re giving up four months of our lives to this show in 2020, it best had be worth it

Read more: the best Twitter reactions to Love Island 2019...