LOS ANGELES (AP) — Love is impatient, love is not kind — at least if you ask fans of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind.” Viewers will have to wait more than an hour to watch the Season 4 reunion special set to stream live on Sunday – Netflix’s second live event on its own platform.
“Love Is Blind: The Live Reunion,” hosted by Vanessa and Nick Lachey, will stream from Los Angeles starting at 5 pm Pacific. Netflix subscribers were able to join a waiting room for the show 10 minutes before the start time – and those who did were there an hour later. The show finally started airing for some – apparently live – at around 6:16 pm Pacific, although some Netflix users are still reporting difficulties accessing the content.
“We’re sorry we’re late,” said Vanessa Lachey, the only acknowledgment of the delay over the broadcast.
“To everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon… we are very sorry that the Love is Blind Live Reunion did not happen as we had planned,” Netflix tweeted at 6:29 p.m. Pacific. “We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry.”
On Monday, Netflix Tweet that the reunion will be available worldwide at 12 pm Pacific.: “Promise.”
A request for comment from Netflix was not immediately returned. Netflix’s first live streaming event, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” did not present any apparent technical difficulties.
On Twitter, Netflix acknowledged the delay without providing an explanation. Two minutes past the initial start time, it promised the special would be over in 15 minutes. Seven minutes later, the company tweeted: “Promise #LoveIsBlindLIVE will be worth the wait….” with a photo of one of the “villains” of the season.
The last activity from the account was a retweet by US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joked about the delay. At the original time of the end of the special approach, nothing was ever posted – and it remained so even once the show began to air for some, until the apology tweet.
Before the show finally aired, Vanessa Lachey took to Instagram – briefly live, perhaps ironically – from the set to try to persuade viewers to continue, indicating that the delay was a technical issue in a post that thanked fans for their patience and captioned it: “Apparently we broke the internet!”
“This is 2023,” he said.
Cast members from the Seattle-based season also took to the social media platform to joke about the delay. Marshall Glaze posted a photo of a man studying multiple wires: “I tried everything,” he tweeted.
Competing streamers and networks are also making hay of the drama.
“We’re not going to keep you waiting for a Reunion,” BravoTV — home to many wild reunion specials — Tweet with a winky face.
“Hmm,” read a screencap featuring Kerry Washington Hulu tweeted.
While the chaos dominates trending topics on Twitter, the end of time brings a significant threat to Netflix’s dominance of the discourse: the latest episode of HBO’s “Succession” is now streaming.
___
Associated Press journalists Beatrice Dupuy, Alicia Rancilio and Mallika Sen contributed to this report.