In what has been a rough night for Netflix’s live ambitions, the live reunion special for the streamer’s hugely popular reality series “Love Is Blind” failed to launch.
The special was set to go to air at 5pm US-PT on Sunday, April 16th, and brings to an end to the show’s fourth season in what is the second effort by Netflix in the live event space – the first being the stand-up special “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage” early last month.
The reasons for the delay were not immediately clear. Viewers trying to watch the special have been hit with error messages after the live show failed to load. The company addressed the issue online with a tweet reading, “Love is … late #LoveIsBlindLIVE will be on in 15 minutes!”.
Cut to the time of this article’s writing 75 minutes after the apparent start time and social media is filled with mixed reports – some still having trouble, some say they’ve been able to get it working.
Trying from the Dark Horizons office, one attempt to play it on a browser was hit by a “There is a problem with the live stream” video message. Trying to load via an Apple TV box led to a single still image coming up and a stalled video stream.
Returning five minutes later, the episode has been entirely blacked out with only a ‘Remind Me’ option – suggesting the streamer may have pulled its live availability in some international markets like Australia.
The show follows a series of single men and women as they speed dates within adjoined rooms called ‘pods,’ getting engaged without ever seeing one another face to face. Nick and Vanessa Lachey host the series, which has already been picked up for a fifth season.
UPDATE: 90 minutes after it was supposed to air, Netflix has issued a statement saying they’ve essentially pulled the live component for those who haven’t been able to get it working: “To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are incredibly sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not turn out as we had planned. We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible.”
Source: Variety
