Down for Love Review 2023 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
In the first episode, we meet Josh, who is almost 21 and lives with his family in Auckland. He wants to find love because “I love cuddling and kissing.” His parents, brother, sister and friends marvel at his positive attitude and up-for-anything personality. Ideally, he’d want to find someone who also has Down syndrome so they have something in common. He gets some help from Dave Hicks, a relationship expert that helps people with disabilities, and Hicks tells Josh that eye contact is really important. Josh’s first date, at the theme park where he works, goes well but isn’t a love match.
We then meet Libby, 19, who lives with her grandmother in a suburb outside the city. She’s a model and actress, who starred in the film Poppy; she feels that the relationship her character had in that film gave her the confidence to pursue one for real. She lost her mother to cancer when she was 12, and her mom is always at the forefront of her thoughts. She goes on a sailing date in Auckland, and that one also ends with the two of them just being friends.
Brooke, 27, and Jesse, 25, have been friends since they were 13 and 11, respectively, and have been together for a decade. He actually asked her to marry him when they were teenagers. They eventually want to live on their own as a couple, and they’re working towards the ability to do that. Do they want kids? It seems that Brooke does but Jesse doesn’t, but that hasn’t hurt things between them. Josh and his mother visit Jesse, Brooke and Jesse’s mother so Josh can get some advice on being in a relationship.
Then Josh and Libby go on a second date… with each other, and they hit it off.
Like Love On The Spectrum, Down For Love is all about showing the people looking for love in the best possible light. Even though it’s essentially a dating series, it’s not trying to show horrible dates or love mismatches. The producers of Down For Love are rooting for love connections, and even when their subjects go on dates that don’t end up being love matches, everyone comes away from the experience with a new friend and a better idea of what they want and don’t want in a mate.
An interesting aspect of this series is the producers profiling couples as well as singletons. They’ve already found love, and they have to deal with all of the same issues other couples have to deal with. But when both people in the couple have intellectual disabilities, there’s also the issues of whether they can live on their own and if they have a grasp of some of the more complex aspects of being in a relationship.
Again, all of these topics are addressed with affection and respect. Yes, when two people like Josh and Libby hit it off, they go straight into puppy love phase, because that’s their idea of what a relationship is. But we’ll be interested to see if these couples deepen their bond as they find out more about each other.
