You know Love Island has returned to our screens when words like “re-coupling”, “top three” and “graft” start to creep their way back into our vocabularies and with the glossary growing by the day, the 2022 season is now officially in full-swing.
So far, season 8 seems to be ticking all of the typical Week 1 boxes: numerous bombshells have strutted into the villa, the first islander (Welsh student Liam Llewelyn) has left the show and the public displays of affection are only getting sloppier, but there is one big difference between this year and its predecessors.
Whether you’ve been watching the show or not, by now you’ll be familiar with Gemma Owen – the daughter of footballer Michael Owen and Love Island 2022 contestant – with the dressage rider making headlines after being the show’s main focal point for the last week.
There’s always been a discrepancy when it comes to islander screen time on Love Island but season 8 seems to take it to a whole new level, with the key storylines revolving around Davide Sanclimenti bidding for Gemma’s affections, Gemma choosing the Italian Stallion over Liam, and fishmonger Luca Bish shooting his shot with her ahead of the second re-coupling.
Then just when you thought the show couldn’t get more Gemma-centric, the Love Island producers poured more fuel on the constant Twitter fire by flying in the 19-year-old’s ex-boyfriend, rugby player Jacques O’Neill, in last night’s episode.
I love contrived drama as much as the next reality fan and on paper, these plot points should make for juicy viewing, but the show seems more like Gemma Island than Love Island at the moment – and it’s getting boring.
The fact that Gemma is the most sought-after in the villa and that her dad is a sports pundit and a former footballer will be key reasons why she’s featured the most on the show, but through absolutely no fault of her own it’s just not as entertaining.
The Chester-based teen is more of an understated character and as viewers are used to seeing big personalities on screen, the show is starting to feel like more of a snooze-fest.
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With air time being diverted to the Gemma-Luca-Jacques love triangle, that also means that we’re not getting to know other couples particularly well despite the fact that they’re potentially stronger. Dami Hope is starting to show off his comedic chops as he features a bit more but Amber Beckford has fallen into the ‘best friend’ role, with clips of her chatting to the other islanders about their relationships making it into the edit.
Meanwhile, we’re yet to see a huge amount of Indiyah Polack, Ikenna Ekwonna and Afia Tonkmor and viewers have noticed – with fans on Twitter calling for them to feature more after seeing deleted scenes of them kissing, dancing and messing about in the Unseen Bits episode.
While everything could change in the next week of Love Island episodes, hopefully the show will become less about Gemma Owen and begin sharing the screen time with the other contestants – and if another of the dressage rider’s ex-boyfriends enters the villa, I will be protesting outside the Mallorca villa myself.
Love Island 2022 continues tonight (Tuesday 14th June) at 9pm on ITV2 and ITV Hub. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.
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