Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Forbidden Love’ On TLC, A Reality Series That Explores Couples That Cross Religions And Cultures

Forbidden Love is a reality series that follows four couples who are trying to find happiness against really long odds. The odds are long because each member of the couple is from a different religion, one in which either themselves or their families are devout or at least highly invested; the cultural and religious differences, as well as how each person’s family is reacting to the coupling, add even more barriers to success.

FORBIDDEN LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes from Season 1 of Forbidden Love.

The Gist: We meet three of the four couples in episode 1. Elmer, 23, left his Amish community in Ohio to marry an “English” (the Amish term for a non-Amish person) named Lindsey, 34. She’s pregnant with their first child. He’s been having some issues adjusting to a life with modern conveniences; we see a scene, for instance, where Lindsey is teaching him how to floss his teeth. His family has completely shunned him because he married an English woman, as we see when the couple goes to a horse auction. But the biggest problem is that, having access to the internet for the first time, Lindsey is dismayed at how much porn Elmer is watching, to the point where she tells him this might end the marriage.

Eli, 32, is an Orthodox Jew who lives in Los Angeles; he calls it “Judaism on steroids” as we see him putting on tefillin and praying in his home. His fiancée is Laurie, 36, who is from an Italian Catholic family. They both had addiction issues in their younger years and met at AA; Laurie didn’t even realize for six months that Eli was orthodox. She wants to convert to marry him, and she’s studying with a rabbi to take the conversion test, but it’s not going well. She is also chafing under the restrictions involved in being an orthodox woman, including modest clothing, and the fact that she’s not allowed to be near Eli when she’s on her period, because she’s considered “impure” until she bathes in a mikveh at the end of her period.

Ashley, 31, a Christian, impulsively moved from Jefferson City, Missouri to Rochester, New York to live with and marry Mohammed, 31, a devout Muslim who moved to the US from Saudi Arabia. Her family members are textbook Islamophobes, telling Ashely that they fear for her safety while she’s with Mohammed. One of her sisters even called him a terrorist behind his back. Mohammed’s twin brother doesn’t love Ashley, either; he thinks she has a terrible temper. Oh, and there’s the fact that they’ve been married for 3 years, and have a 2-year-old daughter, and Ashley hasn’t converted yet.

We see glimpses of the fourth couple, Lensa, 32, and Kris, 37, in the season 1 montage to open the show. Lensa is Muslim and has already been through two failed arranged marriages. Kris is the son of a Pentecostal minister who often speaks in tongues. They each want the other to convert. Let’s just say this one isn’t going well.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Forbidden Love has a similar format to many other TLC reality shows, like Unexpected or the entire 90 Day Fiancé universe.

Our Take: Despite the somewhat exploitative TLC reality format the show is in — the producers of the series would rather show the fights and difficulties each couple faces than show any moments where they get along and/or show why they got together in the first place — Forbidden Love gives an interesting glimpse at just how fraught relationships are when outside negative forces are just too tough to ignore.

In two of the four cases — Ashley and Mohammed, Lensa and Kris — families have as much to do with the couples’ issues as religion does. It’s pretty clear that Ashley’s family doesn’t want to see anything beyond Mohammed’s religion, and characterize him in ways that would make no sense if they actually sat down and got to know him. It’s to the point where he tells her that he doesn’t ever want to see her family again. With Lensa and Kris, we see Kris’s dad try to baptize Lensa in a parking lot. That’s not exactly going to foster trust between Lensa and Kris’ family, will it?

In the other two cases — Lindsey and Elmer, Eli and Laurie — family is somewhat less involved, but just the idea that one member of the couple is trying to change everything about themselves and what they’ve known in life to be with their partners is also fascinating. We especially feel for Laurie, whom we can see doesn’t really want to convert, and especially doesn’t want to live by the restrictive guidelines for women set by Eli’s orthodox sect, but she knows that it’s either convert or lose Eli. It’s a position we would never want to see anyone in, and it certainly points out just how tough it is for women in the more orthodox and devout sectors of particular religions.

Of the four couples, the only one that doesn’t seem doomed is Lindsey and Elmer. Yes, his porn addiction my seem bad, and it also may seem that Lindsey is putting too many expectations on someone who never really lived in the modern world until he was around 20, but their arguments feel like the ones that are the most producer-manipulated of the couples we saw. Their issues are serious, but not nearly as serious as families that hate a particular spouse or people who feel forced to convert to a religion even though their mores are against everything they stand for.

Sex and Skin: During one of Lindsey and Elmer’s porn conversations, she asks him if he knows anyone in his community that practiced bestiality. That felt like one of the more set-up conversations of the hour. But Elmer does acknowledge that, when you’re young and Amish and can’t have sex until marriage, you end up doing strange things.

Parting Shot: Ashley tells Mohammed that if they can’t bridge the gap between him and her family, their marriage just isn’t going to “be successful,” as she puts it.

Sleeper Star: We don’t know why, but we thought it was funny when Laurie joked with the rabbi that God “has some cocktails” on Rosh Hashanah. Any rabbi worth his or her salt would find that funny too; the one she was studying with decidedly did not.

Most Pilot-y Line: The animal sex conversation between Elmer and Lindsey felt like it was recreated by producers, especially given how unheated it seemed. Hell, Elmer is just noshing on Goldfish during the whole thing.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Yes, Forbidden Love is a typical TLC reality show in many ways. But if you look past the reality conventions and really take a look at the couples being followed, it’s actually a pretty interesting look at how love can’t always conquer all.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.