Nothing gold can stay.
Amid numerous cancellations, mix-ups, and even the complete erasure of series and films from HBO Max, we’ve reached the HBO-pocalypse. The streamer has canceled FBoy Island, one of the most captivating reality dating series in recent memory. How could such an atrocity occur? And why can’t we trust HBO Max?
In the past, I’ve written about HBO Max removing shows like Genera+ion from their platform entirely—a complete travesty that still concerns me. Now, FBoy Island might be gone too, as the platform works on rebranding under new CEO David Zaslav. It’s been reported that HBO Max is merging with Discovery+ into “Max” (a terrible name), so, in that upheaval, there’s a chance that FBoy Island may fall into the cracks and end up forever in Limbro.
The premise for FBoy Island was simple. Three hot young women led the show, looking for love—but all had to have an extensive dating resume, with a history that included multiple “FBoys” (read: fuckboys, because even though HBO uses the word “fuck,” they still exclusively used this goofy term) in the mix. A pool of around two dozen men entered the ring in an attempt to win their hands. The twist: Half of the men were self-proclaimed “Nice Guys,” and half were “FBoys.” No one, not even us at home, knew who came from which category.
It was up to the three ladies, led by sage Nikki Glaser, to assess which guy was a Nice Guy and which assholes were FBoys playing them for money. That’s where the show gets less simple—in almost every dump of episodes, the contestants fell victim to some galaxy-brained twist. At random times, the men would have to reveal their Nice Guy/FBoy title. When boys were voted out, they were either sent to “Nice Guy Grotto” or “Limbro,” where they’d learn to recover from their past mistakes. In the second season, returning agents of chaos reared their heads once more.
In true FBoy Island fashion, the end goal for both the girls and the boys was never really unveiled until the final episode. In the first season, the ladies were told that if they selected an FBoy as their mate, the money was his decision—either he could split $100,000 two ways, or run with it. Nice guys were forced to split the dough. This season, however, pandemonium broke out when the ladies could opt to match with no guys and dart off with the money themselves, becoming “FGirls.”
Which is why, ultimately, it’s so sad to see the show go. Whereas reality series like The Bachelor and Love Is Blind drag on with the same structure every season, FBoy Island was reinventing the reality show formula by constantly evolving itself. Lord knows we would’ve all loved to see FGirl Island. Bring in Pete Davidson! And we’re all still waiting on Casey’s big redemption arc after two seasons of failure.
Back when the sophomore season premiered in July, Glaser (who deserves multiple awards for quips like “FBoy, FBye” and “Nice Guy, Nice Try”) told me that hosting the series was “the greatest thing I’ve ever done.” All she had to do was show up to a sunny island and roast some recklessly hot fuckboys.
“I don’t understand why anyone would ever do a scripted show,” she told me at the time, harping on the value of reality shows like this one. “It takes so long to learn lines, [and] to then learn how to act those lines, memorize the lines. If you’re writing the show, [you have to] write the lines, build the sets, wait for the cameras to change position. FBoy Island, you just set it up and you go.”
This is all to say: The series can’t have had the largest budget in Warner Bros. Discovery history. Why cancel it, then?
The word on the street with the ongoing HBO Max drama is that Warner Bros. Discovery has been attempting to pivot to cheaper reality TV shows—think Chip and Joanna Gaines. But if that’s the case, why cancel a hit reality TV series, that was probably inexpensive, created by a former producer on The Bachelor? In the vast world of reality TV, FBoy Island is a rare home run: It’s cheesy, but also addictive and endlessly creative.
All FBoy Island needed to entertain was Nikki Glaser, a beautiful island getaway, and a “zoo” (thanks again, Nikki) full of ravenously horny 20-somethings ready to get fucked and fucked over. No fancy-schmancy Netflix wine goblets needed. No Game of Thrones production budget required. Ditch the Emmy campaigns. And the donkey-sized prosthetic penis. (Although, if the show ever does get renewed for Season 3, this gives me an idea.)
My only advice: Protect your favorite HBO Max shows while you still can. Guard Hacks, cherish this new season of The Sex Lives of College Girls, and get ready to start yelling about The Other Twofrom the tops of every rooftop in the world. If FBoy Island isn’t safe, I don’t know what is.
