After another eight weeks of contestants miraculously keeping their immaculate looks in check while battling gale-force winds, Love Island has finally ended – well, until it returns in three months.
On paper, there was a lot to be excited for ahead of the launch.
It was the first Winter series since 2019, perhaps this one could rectify the wrongs of its predecessor four years ago.
The latest summer series of Love Island was the best in years, totally reviving the levels of excitement which had millions of us gripped during the Chris and Kem hay days of 2017.
And more importantly, Love Island had finally found the perfect fit in its host four years after the death of Caroline Flack.
Maya Jama was destined for Love Island and Love Island always felt like it had been made for her. Why the two hadn’t come together sooner is utterly bizarre.
And she was off to a predictably cracking start. Audiences loved her first episode, her genuine enthusiasm for the show, the contestants, and the process.
Love Island 2023
Winter Love Island 2023 is over, with Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan being crowned winners
- Olivia Hawkins reacts to ex Kai Fagan winning show with Sanam Harrinanan
- Love Island winner Sanam Harrinanan adorably lets slip she ‘loves’ Kai Fagan
- The ultimate Winter Love Island quiz: How much do you remember from series 9?
Get all the latest updates from the villa on Metro.co.uk‘s dedicated Love Island hub.
She was quite rightly ecstatic to be in the villa, and her energy was infectious throughout the entire run right until Monday night’s final, which crowned Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan the worthy winners taking home the £50,000 prize fund.
It was a great end to what was by far the most laborious series of Love Island to date.
Suddenly, for the first time Love Island felt like watching children playing kiss chase at school
The finale drew in just 1.1 million viewers overnight, which will get a boost from catch-up.
However, that’s still almost a third of the audience which tuned into the equivalent episode just a few months ago and the lowest viewing figure for any final since series two when Love Island was still finding its feet.
In hindsight, much of what should have worked in the Winter Love Island’s favour was perhaps its downfall.
Coming off the back of Ekin-su Cülcüloğlu and Davide Sanclimenti, while anticipation was high, it was perhaps an impossible ask to meet the same standards with the next batch of contestants.
Ekin-su won us all over as the queen of chaos, easily the most lovable contestant the show has seen for a long time, possibly ever. Granted, Ekin-su crawled on the floor to sneak a kiss from Jay Younger behind Davide’s back and sought a sort of mother figure in Gemma Owen who was 10 years her junior, but together her and Davide still had a maturity rarely seen in Love Island.
It was noticeably missing this time around.
I felt like I’d somehow aged 10 years between last summer and January when suddenly for the first time Love Island felt like watching children playing kiss chase at school.
Until Kai and Sanam finally gave this series its first genuine romance worth rooting for, Love Island faced a serious problem which never really got resolved – there wasn’t a trace of love between the couples and more importantly there was no real love at the centre of the friendships, either.
Olivia Hawkins was willing to throw anyone and everyone under a bus but gained absolutely nothing from the process. Her game playing wasn’t even a little bit entertaining, just incredibly uncomfortable.
The morning catch ups over a coffee are painful enough when the cast are true friends, but this time it felt like watching colleagues awkwardly forcing conversation in a lift.
The best series of Love Islands have always been packed with girl power.
Especially since Love Island gets a bad reputation for unrealistic ideals of how women should look and behave and displaying toxic masculinity to an impressionable audience of thousands of teenagers.
But often I actually think there’s incredible role models to come out of the villa – Maura Higgins was a trailblazer in not taking BS, Amy Hart showed being vulnerable and laying out your needs isn’t weak, it’s strong, and Ekin-su wrote the handbook in how to always be kind and embrace every single one of your eccentricities.
Every series I can find plenty of reasons to love islanders, and ultimately, it’s always the heroes that keep me tuning in.
It would be easy to blame Love Island fatigue for this winter series and the one before it not working. In just 12 weeks time we’ll be doing the rodeo all over again.
Big Brother fans are frothing at the mouth for its return later this year. Some of the greatest Big Brother moments were in the winter months – David’s Dead, Kim Woodburn being escorted by security out of the Borehamwood bungalow yelling ‘adulterer’.
The upcoming ‘over 40s’ Love Island currently titled Romance Retreat has already got Love Island fans excited and I imagine will introduce the format to an entirely new audience too.
Surely then it would have made more sense to launch either new formats before returning with another Love Island?
The first series with Maya Jama deserved an explosive launch to an audience of fans desperate for its return. Instead, even its most loyal viewers crashed out after a few episodes if they even tuned in at all.
I wasn’t ready for another Love Island but I say that every season and, without fail, always get drawn in. My friendships, family and relationship are ultimately put on the back burner and I become far more invested in the lives of influencers 10 years younger than me than is healthy or recommended.
It would take much more than it being aired in the winter months to turn me off.
Ultimately, without a likeable cast, genuine connections and a hero at its core, Love Island is doomed to fail whatever the weather.
Has this series done Love Island’s future any harm? No, if anything it still has the potential to shine brighter than ever with Maya at its helm. She just needs a series which does her credentials justice.
Love Island is available to stream on ITVX
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