Celebrity Showmance

The ITV press office gave this outline synopsis:

Six single celebrities have been paired into three very unlikely 'couples' and set ridiculous challenges to attract maximum social media attention. Can they persuade their friends, family and fans that it's real? More importantly, can they generate the most likes and comments on social media to win the Celebrity Showmance crown and trophy?

Unlike any other TV game show, in Celebrity Showmance the public become unwitting judges, as each couples' chance of winning hinges on the amount of buzz they generate across social media.

Each challenge culminates in a photo or video, which the celebrities post on social media. The couple that generates the highest number of likes, comments, shares and retweets about their relationship is awarded the most points - so the pressure is on to take the most iconic selfie. The couple with the highest score at the end of the series will be awarded a trophy and declared winners in the game of Celebrity Showmance!

Here's what our intrepid reviewer saw. There's a lot about the various activities to make a fake "romance" - we'll see people picking an impressive selfie, choosing each other's outfits, faking a "meeting" and a "romantic walk" and so on and so on and so on.

We're a game show site, we need to note how they keep score. It's done from each person's "likes" and "shares" and "retweets" and "impressions" and "comments" and "other social media interactions" in the first 24 hours after posting, and then comparing this to a figure they took before the contest started. It's a bit black-box, and fits into the slightly arbitrary and subjective show.

The good news: each episode also has a clear contest, for instance "take as many selfies with people in 15 minutes as you can".

Don't watch Celebrity Showmance for the competition, because it's thinner than a spiderweb.

Don't watch Celebrity Showmance for deep social insights. The producers may have been surprised at how easy it was to fool the media, how there's an industry that doesn't care about objective truth when they can sell a sweet love story.

Do watch Celebrity Showmance to see celebrities do mildly daft things, and gently embarrassing themselves in public. The producers have chosen to make this show, and they've done a great job with the story they want to tell.

• Chloe Sims (from ITVBe's The Only Way is Essex) and Abz Love (from Five)
• Victoria Hervey (from The Farm) and Jamie O'Hara (journeyman footballer)
• Hayley Hasselhoff (celebrity daughter) and Kyle Christie (from MTV's Geordie Shore)

David Williams of Keshet UK

Filming took place during July 2017, for transmission that autumn.