Sarah Hyland looks cool as a cucumber here, and not at all as if she’s going to finish her morning press and then zip off to California in a hurry to (I guess?) Covid test and then (presumably?) sequester herself with a bunch of horny twentysomethings. Love Island USA is generally accepted to be the inferior compared with its UK sibling, but I still thought it had been doing well enough on CBS that it would stay the course. But then somehow Peacock ended up with it, they booted the perfectly corny-funny narrator in favor of Iain Stirling (who is beloved for his work on the UK version), and then they axed host Arielle Vandenberg and replaced her with Hyland. She is engaged to Wells Adams, a former Bachelorette contestant who is now the bartender on Bachelor in Paradise, so maybe they figure she has plenty of second-hand experience in talking to people who are making bad, hormone-driven decisions. Honestly, I am curious. I know very little about her, other than her health struggles; I don’t think I’ve seen her play herself except on awards red carpets. It’ll be interesting to see how this works. CBS made Vandenberg do a major sexpot entrance each time — slow-motion, wind machine, stomping, sultry eyes — and that really doesn’t seem like Hyland’s vibe, so I guess… we’ll see what Peacock’s approach is? (Truly, that show could run without a host. Just let the narrator bark at them live through a loudspeaker.) I assume Sarah is set for life from Modern Family, so I applaud her for potentially deciding that life is too short and she should just take weird, fun jobs for as long as she can. I am not sure I will watch, because six nights a week is more of these yahoos than I can handle, but good luck and godspeed and I hope her wardrobe is this cute.
