Thirty strangers, looking to find love and maybe also a bit of fame, spend ten days sequestered in windowless “pods,” during which they go on a series of booze-fueled and truly blind dates — participants speak to each other through a wall, unable to see one another. After several such dates, they get engaged, at which point they can finally meet their partner in the flesh.

What could go wrong?

This is, of course, the premise of Netflix’s wildly popular reality dating show Love Is Blind. US viewers consumed a total of 907 million minutes of the series this year. But former participants of Love Is Blind have produced a deluge of accusations of mistreatment against the show’s producers. “Several open lawsuits have alleged inhumane working conditions, including claims that the cast is encouraged to drink alcohol, not given sufficient food, and imprisoned against its will,” according to a recent New York magazine feature.