Better Late Than Single Is a Dating-Show Palate Cleanser

August 6, 2025
7:52 pm

After a summer of watching people stick their tongues down each other’s throats and learn a new twerking move on Love Island USA, we need a palate cleanser, and Better Late Than Single is a nice icy sorbet. The Korean dating show (whose ten episodes are now streaming on Netflix) follows nine “eternal singles” — a.k.a. young adults in their mid-20s who have never been in a relationship before — as they try to find a partner. It’s a complete 180 from models and influencers making out while half-naked. That’s not to say our horny shows aren’t a lot of fun — Amaya basically evolved the English language in six weeks — but there were definitely parts of the show where you truly just felt sick, like when Austin, Ace, and Zak were ganging up on Amaya during the Standing on Business challenge or the fact that two people were sent home for being racist. We need something gentler to settle our stomachs; a show about people who are a little afraid to be vulnerable when dating is just what the doctor ordered.

Thankfully, Better Late knows better than to throw nine awkward singles into the dating Olympics without proper training. Before the singles get to the resort where they’ll be living together during the experience, they each get trained by a “cupid,” one of four panelists who give commentary and insight off-screen throughout the season. Everyone gets to choose what they want to work on based on their specific dating concerns: looks, fitness, speech, or therapy. It’s giving them actual life skills to use, and also, it would not be fun to just watch a bunch of awkward 20-somethings making small talk for ten episodes. Because she was raised without a father and only went to all-girls schools, one woman, Ji-yeon, chose therapy to work through her fears that her future partner would become like her father. “I want to show people how I can overcome the biases and stereotypes I feel toward men and move forward with my life,” she tells the camera. “I’m arriving single, but when I leave here, I won’t be.”

This isn’t to say Better Late is a wholesome dating show like Love on the Spectrum. It’s silly to assume there would be no drama in a show full of people who have never dated, especially considering that they all applied to be on reality TV. Right off the bat, a few people have crushes on the same person. There’s scheming and plotting from the daters as they try to use their new knowledge to get paired up with their crush during their nine-day stay at the resort. It’s just a little more clumsy than we’re used to seeing on shows that exclusively cast Hot People. For one challenge, the daters had to pick a drink for breakfast, and whoever got the same drink went on a date together. While some daters figured out the puzzle, they were still caught up in politeness or shyness instead of shamelessly going after whom they wanted to date.

There are some twists that in a horny kissing show would be anticlimactic, but for these singles, it’s like a meteor hit the resort. At one point, a new single joins the crew, Lee Seung-chan, whose dating experience far exceeds everyone else’s — he’s dated one person for about 100 days in his 31 years on earth. He’s the professional baseball player to their Little League tots. There are even actual kissing scenes sprinkled in the season (albeit very, very minimal ones) and heartbreak that comes with some growing pains between the daters.

The slow-burn romances among the daters is addictive, even if at the end of the day we know that they might not stay together. It is their first time dating, after all. During episode nine, the penultimate episode, two cast members hold fingers in the car, and the Cupids cannot contain their excitement as they run around the room. It’s impossible not to giggle and blush watching a coming-of-age milestone unfold onscreen, even something as innocent as interlocking fingers, because holding hands might make their hearts explode. Nothing can top the feeling of reliving your first romance; you can’t unlearn dating and growing pains, but you can relive those memories, even if they were cringey at the time. You can look back with love, since you know in the end it’ll all be just fine. The rush of having a crush reciprocated for the first time — a crush that still happens when you’re your awkward self — is the best high a dating show can offer a viewer. “This is making us lose our minds more!” Kang Hanna, one of the panelists, screams as they cheer on the eternal singles locking fingers.

Maybe the real horny summer was the slow-burn romance we made along the way.