Walking onto the set of a reality TV dating show is very much like stepping through the Gates of Hell.
The rooms are sweltering, bright lights beat down upon you and the twin stenches of debauchery and sin waft through the air and make their way into every fiber of your being.
You’ll also be completely and utterly captivated by all the goings on around you, which is exactly how I felt when I stepped onto the set of Channel Seven’s brand new dating show, Take Me Out.
The set of Take Me Out, which is filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney, looked as if it had been designed by a pair of escapees from My Little Pony, who were unapologetically working off a design found within the pages of a six-year-old’s dream journal.
Everything was bright, shiny and pink, with more flashing lights than a fire engine heading into the mouth of a dangerous natural disaster.
This glorious set-up perfectly set the scene for what we could expect from Aussie TV’s latest voyeuristic offering. A show where once again we are allowed to hide behind a screen and marvel as complete strangers engage in odd pre-mating rituals without feeling an ounce of awkwardness about our behaviour, because it’s all sanctioned entertainment
Before the taping started, our little group of writers was led to the side of the stage to indulge in some light refreshments before we were herded in to take our places within the pink stage set even Barbie would look at and think “…eugh, that’s a little too much.”
(Side note: Say what you will about the struggle of writers, and yes we might go to uni for four years and then never find sustainable employment, but some days you are given free cheese so it all kind of works out in the end).