Welcome to TV Tuesday, a column devoted to following the newest and most notable Chinese mainland television shows. Each week, this features examines notable television shows that are worth watching.

Even though it is China’s most-watched television, reality TV shows aren’t about real people. Hit shows like The Running Man are basically a series of staged stunts that feature the country’s biggest celebrities in yet another promotional vehicle. Meanwhile, top Chinese dating shows like Are You the One? (非诚勿扰) and Very Perfect (非常完美) have little to do with our reality, preferring to depict an idealized world of happy endings.

One could argue that television audiences don’t want to watch something “real” people, especially when it comes to “reality television.” But then, that doesn’t explain Perfect Match (门当户对), China’s popular and long-running dating show that embraces reality, even if that reality is the inherent awkwardness of Chinese society.

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The success of Perfect Match is all thanks to its two affable hosts, Wang Fang and Wang Weinian, who perfected their irrepressible TV personalities on their previous dating show Selection (选择) via Beijing Television. At their new home on the Heilongjiang Satellite Television station, the two Wangs use their charisma to draw out candid and personable responses from wooden guests usually reticent to talk. The result is straightforward mix of audacity, cringeworthiness, and sentimentality that is hard to find in China, let alone serve as compelling television.

Chinese-Style Dating may have captured the most attention by turning the dating genre on its head by putting parents’ ambitions ahead of their children’s, but Perfect Match is a testament to how the truth won’t set you free. Even though guests are quick to judge other other suitors when filmed separately, they suddenly shrink away from their own opinions when confronted face-to-face, forcing the hosts to smoothly interject and serve as reassuring chaperones.

Not willing to “lose face” but also wanting to find a romantic life partner, Perfect Match is a blunt look at how Chinese people deal with everyday contradictions. With a tone that veers wildly between schmaltz and embarrassment, Chinese TV shows simply don’t come as close to real life as this one.

What is the show about?

Perfect Match follows a familiar formula by having guests introduce themselves by revealing their hardships to gain audience sympathy before pairing them up with a potential match to see if any sparks fly, which they usually don’t. But, to describe the show this way is to ignore its unavoidable subtext.

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As with Selection before it, the guests featured on Perfect Match are almost always older and not young Chinese adults as seen on other Chinese dating shows, proving that there is a large number of middle-aged and retired Chinese looking to find love. 

By exclusively featuring divorced and widowed guests over years of programming, Perfect Match seems to imply that finding true love is what you get to do only after completing your filial obligation to raise children. Although other dating shows engage in romantic fantasies, Perfect Match is all about trying to find comfort after a lifetime of struggle in which there was no time for love.

And as honest as guests appearing on this show are, it’s clear that these single men and women are finally getting around to making choices for themselves, and not for the sake of their families.

Mandarin level of difficulty

Standard conversational level; rated three out of five for difficulty.

Where to watch it

Broadcasts on Saturday night on the Heilongjiang Satellite Television channel, and can be viewed online on QQ.

More stories from this author here.

Twitter: @Sinopath

Images: hljradio, QQ Video