Love at First Sight

Synopsis

There would be three men and three women. They would answer questions which would try to give the opposite sex some indication about their personality. After they've done that, they would each simultaneously input into their computer, CUPID (sadly), which one of the opposite sex they fancy.

After the break it would be revealed one at a time who picked who. If two people picked each other, they would win and would go out on a date. This was one of the most interesting parts of the show - the trails of who-fancies-who were often quite intricate.

Afterwards, winners from a previous show would play a game on a big board with 10 hearts on. They would be asked six questions about each other, three each, and for each one correct, they won a love heart. Aaaahh.

These had a reason because afterwards, each heart was worth a shot at the big prize board. They had 4 seconds per heart won to shoot heart-shaped targets the using the joystick. Behind nine of them were normal prizes, but behind one was a special star prize holiday (which yes, they had to take together - Aaaah again). However, behind one was the evil Broken Heart, which meant game over.

An interesting twist was that many of the shows were themed, such as three horseriding girls (in full horsy get-up) would meet three fishermen clad in waders. Zany but silly at the same time.

Bonus marks are awarded for some slick, fun hosting by both Brookes and Brumby. If you like your relationship game shows with a bit more meat on them than Blind Date and its clones, this was the show for you.

Inventor

Created by Stephen Leahy.

Theme music

Simon Etchell

Trivia

Zoe Ball was a researcher on the show.

It's rumoured that a young Victoria Beckham auditioned for the show but was rejected.

We've never thought of this as one of the big-hitters of the game show world, but for some reason this very page that you're reading right now has turned out to be the most visited entry on the entire UKGameshows.com site. And we haven't the foggiest idea why. Perhaps one of our beloved readers (for example, you) would like to use the form below to enlighten us...?

Update: One reader, Aelys Costello, writes: "The reason that I am reading this is because I was on Love At First Sight. I met my husband whilst we were filming the shows, he was on a show before me. Sixteen years later we are still together... with two lovely kids."

And Heather Bixley says, "Yes, I was on Love at First Sight too. I watched my husband's show being filmed before my show was done and here we are 19 years later, 15 years married and two kids!!" So there you have it, at least two marriages came out of it, though admittedly neither match-up actually appeared on screen.

Recorded at Granada Television Studios in Manchester, as the credits were very keen to point out. Though one contestant wrote in to dispute this, recalling "a great two days in Nottingham". Stephen Leahy (bow, curtsey, tug forelock) clears it up: "We recorded shows in Manchester and Nottingham - where we also recorded shows in Russian. It became the Soviet Union's number 1 show with over 100 million viewers, broadcast on terrestrial and satellite channels!".

Pictures

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