Sex Box, which I must reiterate is the show where people have sex in a box, premieres tonight. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your idea of human decency, I was able to see the first episode ahead of time. I’ll try not to overload this review with spoilers, but if you’re the type of person who is that concerned with Sex Box spoilers, I think we have a bigger problem at hand here.
Here’s the bare bones of what happens on Sex Box. Three couples sit before a three-person panel — psychotherapist Fran Walfish, psychologist Chris Donaghue and Dr. Yvonne Capehart, PhD, who also happens to be a pastor — and discuss their relationship problems. Then they go have sex in a box. Which, hopefully, solves all those problems.
So why that headline? Why do I think no one has any actual sex? Because everything about this show, from the lighting to the audience to the ridiculous silk pajamas to the panel to the BOX ITSELF is so, so unsexy. It’s almost like this show was designed to kill boners. This show could dry up an ocean. There is no way anyone had sex in that box.
Here’s a list of all the reasons no one had sex in that box:
- There is a large studio audience sitting outside the box, casually laughing, talking, sneezing, coughing etc while you attempt to have sex. Have sex, mind you, knowing full well this audience is just waiting for you to finish.
- Get rid of the studio audience, and you still have the three panelists sitting right outside, who tend to bide their time by talking absolute shit on both people inside the box. Can you imagine trying to have satisfying sex while you hear an actual person outside the door casually discussing the specific ways you fall short pleasuring your spouse?
- Before you go in the box, you have to talk to the “experts.” These experts apparently know what you want much, much better than you. Even when you smile and say, “really, that is the one part of the relationship I’m okay with.” A 60-year-old psychotherapist will respond “NO, I CAN JUST TELL YOU HATE THAT.” In turn, you get to sit there and ponder your life decisions.
- Also, before you go in the box, the panelists ask, dramatically, “do you want to go in the box?” As if there was a choice. As if you didn’t sign a contract to do this. This is just a reminder that you have no control, and you will go in the box and have sex in front of this audience, because We TV told you to.
- I’ve been on sound stages, and they are usually very cold. Just saying.
- The box itself is massive and intimidating, and looks uncannily like the velociraptor cages from Jurassic Park. As I approach the room in which I’m expected to perform acts of sex, I do not enjoy the thought of being hunted as prey.
- Also, when you’re finished the box lights up from red to blue, which I really need to have explained. Is there a button you press? Is there a camera linked to a screen, where the lighting guy is like, “Aaaaaaand done.” Either way, I don’t know if I’d want that. The only time I’ve experienced flashing blue and red lights during sex, it was a cop car.
- The mere fact there is a timer, on screen, timing the duration of your sex, is mortifying. No one, and I mean NO ONE, needs that.
Alright, maybe you heard all that and thought, “well maybe it will be titillating. After all, it’s called Sex Box!” Even if by some slim chance some sex happened in that box, you would have no idea. There’s no video. There’s not even sound, or a hint that there’s sex. And okay, this is We TV, not WeT V, but come on. The Real World and The Jersey Shore, two paradigms of good taste, get away with at least a hint of sheet movement.
So imagine I bring you to a random box, and say “there’s totally people having sex in there.”
And you respond, “There totally isn’t. It’s freezing in here.”
And I say, “No really, trust me. And it’s fixing all their problems.”
And you again respond, “That doesn’t even make sense. And there’s no way anyone’s having sex in there.”
And I say, “TAKE MY WORD FOR IT.” Then a 65-year-old psychoanalyst and a pastor come from out of nowhere to judge how long you go down on your wife nightly.
That, in a nutshell, is watching Sex Box.
