Netflix viewers raised their eyebrows last year when the streamer announced Dated and Related, a series that sounded semi-incestuous. Siblings, cousins, and other related duos entered a Love Island-esque villa to find love—each one canoodling around with the other love-hungry singles, while their relatives were doing the same thing right next to them. It was a little cringey but, all in all, tamer than the title suggested.
Dated and Related looks like a G-rated Pixar movie compared to MILF Manor, a raunchy romp with that huge relative twist. Going into the TLC series—yes, this is on TLC, though it feels like it should live on HBO Max next to FBoy Island—we knew that we would be meeting a handful of MILFs looking for love. What we didn’t know is that the dating pool would be completely made up of their sons, also eager to sleep around in the same villa. The hilarity! The awkwardness!
If MILF Manor sounds familiar, you may be thinking of MILF Island, a fake competition show developed by NBC in an episode of 30 Rock, in which older women schmooze with eighth graders on an island. Though there are some differences—there aren’t 20 MILFs, there are eight; there aren’t any eighth graders, but there is a 20-year-old—MILF Manor feels like it was ripped straight from Liz Lemon’s desk. It’s satire drawn up into a real show.
The show purely exists to inspire “WTF” reactions, clickbait headlines about mothers feeling up their sons, and total outrage. Perhaps Fox News will drum up a segment about the lack of family values from the so-called “Learning Channel”—oh wait, it already has—even though Rupert Murdoch has a penchant for women at least 30 years younger than him. Any press from Fox News on this risqué show (in fact, any coverage at all) is good press. The more people that do a double take upon hearing “MILF Manor,” the more people that will watch at least one YouTube clip out of curiosity.
Whether or not that YouTube clip leads to a new fan is the real question. The show itself is lazily produced, with no host or prize set up to guide viewers along. The women are looking for love, so are their sons, but what’s the end goal? Without any structure, it’s hard to foresee where an entire season of MILF Manor may go. Even though other bizarre reality dating shows like FBoy Island (in which women find love in a sea of fuckboys and nice guys), there are often cash prizes and, in FBoy’s case, Nikki Glaser to guide them to the end. Instead of a host, text messages are sent out to the moms and sons, announcing the challenges and any updates. MILF Manor could use a bit of restructuring toward giving it a real personality leading the charge—maybe all the stars turned town the opportunity to host, though.
But the twist still lends itself to a thoroughly entertaining piece of reality television for folks who like to cringe—like myself! The moms have varying levels of wackiness, while most of the sons are pretty awkward; together, they equal complete chaos. In the first challenge, the moms are blindfolded and must feel up all the men to find their own son. Several moms get really into the challenge, playfully rubbing their fingers all over abs that they hope don’t belong to their son. In another scene, a son talks about how he wants to massage one of the moms’ feet, lather them in oil, and then eat them. When you have a premise as naughty as MILF Manor’s, you can really go all out with the cheesiness.
There is a problem at the core of MILF Manor that needs to be addressed: The show is misunderstanding what a “MILF” really is. Google the acronym; there’s no need for me to spell it out for you. But a MILF does not exclusively include women who go after men of a younger age. A MILF is simply an attractive woman with kids. A “cougar,” rather, is an older woman who goes after men half her age. A MILF could be pining after a DILF. This show assumes instead that all MILFs are cougars. The MILF Manor contestants try to clear this up in the first episode, arguing instead that cougars are older than MILFs, but the show ultimately fails to understand the difference between these two types of women.
None of this matters if you just want to watch a goofy show with a bonkers premise straight out of a Mad-Lib, though. MILF Manor doesn’t dwell on the difference between MILFs and cougars, nor does it try to make a huge political point out of the double standard at play: that older men can date younger women without commentary, but it’s novel for an older woman to date a younger man. It’s not as wonderfully cheesy as FBoy Island or Love is Blind, but the premise is jaw-dropping enough to tune in for at least one episode. Once MILF Manor is able to lean into the cheese factor while also adding a fun-spirited host and a clear-cut focus, we’ll all be thanking 30 Rock for accidentally inspiring such brilliant TV.
