Love Island made a triumphant return on Monday night, with so many fans watching that the Virgin Media Television Player crashed.
But one person who isn't a fan of the show is Ray D’Arcy.
On his Tuesday afternoon radio show on RTE he told listeners that he is worried about the effect it will have on impressionable teenagers describing it as “tawdry” and “dangerous”.
Ray who is a father of two, went on a quite a tirade after admitting that he had dipped into Monday night's opening episode “just out of professional curiosity”.
He said: “I knew everyone would be talking about it so I needed to have watched a bit of it.”
He complimented Laura Whitmore on doing a great job - but he wasn’t nearly as flattering about the show in general.
He had happened to tune in during the selections where the Islanders pair up with each other and an incredulous Ray exclaimed: “That’s the only way you can say it really they select each other.”
He went on to describe it as “very tawdry.”
He continued: “I thought things were gonna change. I thought we lived in a new world, that programmes like Love Island wouldn’t exist that people wouldn’t entertain them and [yet] it’s going to be as popular as ever.
“It’s escapism, they’re telling us,” he lamented before voicing his concerns.
“Like I would worry about younger, impressionable teenagers watching that and thinking that in some way this was the way the world worked. And that in some way this was the body image that they should aspire to. I think that’s very dangerous.”
To prove his point he played a clip from the show where one of the contestants Toby was asked which girl he would like to choose by Laura Whitmore. He responded “the one in the blue” leading Ray to rant:
“You might have missed that. He said the one in the blue. The one in the blue. Janey mackers huh! That’s my quote of the week. The one in the blue! Didn’t know her name, didn’t care to ask her. The one in the blue!”
Although he admitted that his opinion wasn’t universal saying: “I’ll be a lone voice because everybody else is chatting about it,” he has assured viewers that he will watch again – just to save them the bother.
He told them: “I’ll dip in along the way just to keep you posted. I’ll watch it so you don’t have to.”
