Chains of Love

Reviewed by:
Jane Crawford

When we first heard about Chains of Love, we had high hopes that it would provide an embarrassingly enjoyable way to waste an hour. Sadly, the show portrays the participants as human beings instead of turning them into accordion-playing monkeys for our amusement.

The Picker is physically chained to four members of the opposite sex, who he/she releases over the course of a few days, until he/she is left with a final person. After the last day with that person, the Picker must decide whether to “start a relationship” and split the prize money with the chosen one or walk away.

The chained contestants spend much of their time in a mansion dubbed the “Loveshack,” eating and drinking on UPN’s buck. Fun for them, not for us. There is nothing more irritating than listening to unknown media-whores cry over 48-hour-old relationships. It seems to us that the whole point of chaining people together is to humiliate them with physically challenging tasks, but we’ve seen more action on Nightline.

The one sapphire in the cesspool is the Locksmith, an imposing yet mute man that magically appears when it’s time for the Picker to release a contestant. He even drives the lost souls home and watches intently—via the rearview mirror—as the losers yammer on about the one that got away.