Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ On Netflix, Where 5 Queer Couples Live With Other People To Decide If Their Current Relationships Still Work

Created by the same team that gave us Love Is Blind, The Ultimatum took already-established couples, broke them up, then had them live with other people to see if there’s compatibility. So there is no blind dating, but there is a “playing house” component designed to amp up the drama. In the show’s second season, the couples who are breaking up and mixing together are all queer couples.

THE ULTIMAUM: QUEER LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes from the first season of the series, including a lot of drama.

The Gist: The Ultimatum: Queer Love, hosted by JoAnna Garcia Swisher, has the same rules as The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On, except here, the couples are queer. All of the participants are women (or non-binary, but it seems like everyone uses she/her pronouns here). In each of the five couples, one member has given an ultimatum: Either they get engaged or they break up.

The idea is that the five couples “break up,” then they mix and mingle with the other participants for a week; at the end of the week, the new couples that are made will live together for three weeks, then the people will live with their original significant others for three more weeks. At the end of that time, each participant will either go with their original SO, the person they chose during the show, or move on completely.

On the first night, the five couples — Raelyn and Lexi, Xander and Vanessa, Tiff and Mildred, Yoly and Mal, and Sam and Aussie — spend their last nights together, and talk about what they want to get out of this experience. There is discussion about why the ultimatum issuer wants to get married and why the other member of the couple is resisting. There’s lots of tears, and some last night nookie.

The next morning, there’s more discussion as the couples pack up and officially become exes. Then there’s some “dates” around the pool. Remember, everyone is doing these dates in full view of their exes, so there are a lot of glances over to exes, and some people are more open to the experience than others. That night, the 12 now-single participants have a cocktail party and more discussions, and people decide on having more formal dates.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s The Ultimatum, but with queer couples and 100% fewer Lacheys!

Our Take: The Ultimatum: Queer Love solves one big problem that the original, opposite-sex season of the show had: Not all the couples are super young. In the case of Aussie and Sam, there’s a pretty big age difference. Most of the participants are under 35, but it does seem that most if not all of them have had relationship experience before entering into the one they came to the resort with.

Like the first season, though, the longest any of the couples have been together is 4 years. In that case — Xander and Vanessa — they became friends as they were each dating their high school boyfriends, but realized a few years later they were into each other. So, there’s actually a longer history there.

With the exception of one couple, though, it seems like all of them feel more intense and mature of a connection than the opposite-sex couples did, even at two years or less. It could be the cliché of the queer couple moving in together after two dates, but the feelings are more intense, and the issues between them are more serious than we saw in the first season of this show.

That being said, our caveat to shows like this still applies: If you’re going on a reality dating show to try to save your relationship, you probably should have broken up before even applying. There’s always going to be that feeling pervading the entire series; even if the original couples stay together and get engaged, there’s a feeling that they won’t stay engaged for very long, because the same old issues are still there.

Sex and Skin: Some of the couples have some last-night nookie before becoming exes, but nothing is really shown.

Parting Shot: Raelyn asks Xander if they should break up their exes, as we see Vanessa and Lexi agreeing to a second date. Here’s the thing: Vanessa also just agreed to a second date with Raelyn.

Sleeper Star: Vanessa is the one who is most obviously there to sow her wild oats, because she’s ready to date just about every other person there. Conversely, her “ex” Xander is so reluctant to do this that every date she’s on is really awkard.

Most Pilot-y Line: One of the participants confirms with Garcia Swisher that the host is not queer. Then they all tell her how gorgeous she is. What we want to know is: Why isn’t the host of this show also queer?

Our Call: SKIP IT. Despite the fact that the couples in The Ultimatum: Queer Love seem to be more intense and mature than the couples in the show’s opposite-sex season, the show still feels rudderless because we don’t really care whether the original couples stay together or not.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.