Warner Bros Producer Ricochet & ‘Masked Singer UK’ Maker Bandicoot Devise Post-Lockdown Dating Shows

Jake Kanter
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros-owned Ricochet and Bandicoot TV, the producer behind The Masked Singer UK, are developing separate dating shows for ITV2 and the BBC respectively.

With the UK emerging from lockdown and social distancing rules being relaxed, finding love is back on the agenda —and the two new formats offer new ways into the dating genre. Both are already casting for singletons.

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Ricochet, which has enjoyed stellar success recently with BBC One’s The Repair Shop, is working on a Dinner Dates-style ITV2 series, with the working title Love Bites.

Three amateur cooks will be delivered a box of ingredients, from which they must create a three-course meal to impress a singleton. The singleton will taste the food and chose one of three cooks to date.

Hat Trick Productions-produced Dinner Dates features a participant choosing three menus and blind-dating the three amateur cooks behind the meals. The format is more than a decade old and airs on ITV2’s sister channel ITVBe.

Meanwhile, Bandicoot is developing a BBC show that will help people find love through their passion for gaming. Bandicoot is preparing a non-transmission pilot, with the working title Will You Be My Player 2?. The BBC is currently open-minded about which channel it will land on if it goes to series, though BBC Three seems a likely destination.

Argonon-backed Bandicoot hopes the format has international potential. The company enjoyed success with the first season of The Masked Singer in the UK last year. It is currently preparing to go into production on a second season for ITV.

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