Logan is a big fan of Hannah Montana and Spongebob Squarepants. He loves model trains and watches videos of them crashing, because that way he knows that no one was hurt. His favourite desert is cheesecake. These are touchingly pure interests from a 25-year-old man who lives in the hedonistic capital of Las Vegas. \u201cI describe myself as trying to be well-groomed, very patient, not lazy and always punctual,\u201d he says. \u201cClassy, fancy, romantic \u2013 wait, romantic? Is that the word?\u201d<\/p>\n
Logan is one of the new participants on Netflix\u2019s Love on the Spectrum<\/a>: a series that follows a group of neurodivergent young people as they search for a romantic connection, which returns this week for its fourth season. Unlike other dating shows, such as Love is Blind and Love Island, the stars of this show don\u2019t seem to be motivated by fame and the promise of a Boohoo discount code in their name. In fact, Love on the Spectrum is the antidote to the reality TV of today, which often revolves around controversy and conflict. Watching these young people and their families navigate their search for love isn\u2019t merely wholesome, it makes for life-affirming TV.<\/p>\n The new season is a mixture of familiar and new characters. We catch up with 27-year-old Madison, who found love on season three with Tyler and is now moving to Florida to be closer to him. When she arrives in her new apartment, she unpacks her extensive collection of Disney princess dolls. As she arranges them with precision, she says she wishes there was an autistic Disney princess. In episode two, Tyler takes her on a romantic date for their first Valentine\u2019s Day. Afterwards, he serenades her with the country song Livin\u2019 on Love<\/a>. The lyrics tell the story of an old couple whose children have flown the nest, who spend their remaining days sitting together on a porch and reminiscing. You\u2019d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by it.<\/p>\n Next we catch up with Connor, 26, a returning participant from Atlanta. He isn\u2019t sure whether his girlfriend Georgie likes him, because she keeps acting hot and cold. His mother, Lise, coaches him on how to approach it as they prepare a picnic of finger sandwiches for their upcoming date.<\/p>\n While the show focuses on its young people stepping out on their own to find love, it\u2019s also about the support system around them. Emma, a 22-year-old college student (and fan-fiction writer) from Salt Lake City, is part of a close-knit Mormon family. Her mother still remembers the day she decided to stop \u201cshh-ing\u201d her daughter in church. For her, this was a profound realisation that she should \u201cstop worrying about all the things Emma isn\u2019t, and just enjoy what she is\u201d. And really, isn\u2019t that a lesson that so many of us could take into our own lives?<\/p>\n Looking at the wider reality TV landscape, there is something nostalgic about Love on the Spectrum. It might be hard to imagine, but the earliest reality TV wasn\u2019t totally geared around conflict. At the turn of the millennium, the reality genre was more about shows that claimed to be \u201csocial experiments.\u201d The Simple Life sent a Juicy Couture-clad Paris Hilton<\/a> and Nicole Richie to \u201cwork\u201d on farms. The original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy followed a squad of five gay men as they gave straight men makeovers, while Faking It offered participants the chance to dive into a different life \u2013 and learn a new skill \u2013 for a month. The central message of these shows was that, even when people are different from one another, they\u2019ve still got things in common.<\/p>\n Towards the mid-aughts, reality TV became notably more extreme, dramatic and angry. In the last year, Netflix has released a pair of docuseries \u2013 about the making of The Biggest Loser<\/a> and America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/a> \u2013 that are a case study in how the medium\u2019s Overton window kept shifting, with producers crossing ethical lines to ensure a steady stream of drama. A show like 2004\u2019s Wife Swap represented a tipping point, because it was about putting people together from different class backgrounds and waiting for them to have huge fallouts. That same year, in the UK, Big Brother went \u201cevil<\/a>\u201d, with contestants who were specifically selected to get into arguments. And sure enough, during the now-infamous \u201cfight night\u201d, the housemates got into a physical brawl and the police were called<\/a>. This was a far cry from the second series, in 2002, which centred a summer romance between Welsh hairdresser Helen Adams and Paul Clarke, and was won by the hilarious Irish air steward Brian Dowling.<\/p>\n Tyra Banks and cast members of America\u2019s Next Top Model in 2007. Photograph: Evan Agostini\/Getty Images<\/p>\n