As we enter the ten millionth week of collective quarantine the world’s most valuable company is rapidly becoming Zoom. Mind you, if you decide to invest the ticker symbol is ZM not ZOOM, that’s a totally different company. Not that you probably have money to invest. (If you do, call me.)

The web conferencing software has become the outil de pandémie for everything from business meetings to house parties, despite rampant security problems and dedicated apps for those functions. Free and easy to use goes a long way when everyone needs something to stay socially connected.

Immersive creators are no different, and I’ve run out of fingers, if not quite toes, to count the number of live-streamed shows that are currently being offered, many by creators experimenting with the form for the first time. Which is the case with Blind Love, which finds the creative duo of Katy Foley and Lena Valentine taking their improv-fueled antics online.

Inspired in no small part by the Netflix dating show where contestants were only able to hear but not see their potential mates, Blind Love puts the audience through a gauntlet of audio “dates” with characters run by improv actors.

The show kicks off in a lobby with our hosts, The Cliches (real life couple and LA immersive scene stalwarts Terence Leclare and Karlie Blair) who set a goofy tone for what follows. Admittedly, if you haven’t seen people cohabitating much in real time during the outbreak it can be a bit jarring just seeing a couple on screen. As someone who is alone most of the day (I see my mom, who is help care for) the sight of The Cliches plucked some melancholic heart strings.

Your time with the hosts is limited, and their routine of vamping for time as the producers wrestle with Zoom’s breakout controls makes it clear that’s by design. After a moment I’m invited to a private chat and I’m off.

Gone is the video of The Cliches and in its place is an image of a still life. I miss the name of my first date, as it flashes by all too briefly. She’s speaking to me from the bath, of all things, refusing to interrupt her routine even as she takes part in the dating show. As improv offers go it’s not a weak one — why the hell would someone do that — but it’s not quite strong enough to get me playing at their level.

Despite that we talk, and talk. It feels like an awkward date for much of it, uncomplicated by the bath. Towards the end the talk turns raunchy in an absurd sense, but the riffing ends pretty much as soon as we find ourselves in a rhythm. Then it’s up to me to go back to the lobby.

Huh.

Technical difficulties mean logging in and out of Zoom to get to the next “date.” This time with a young, bubbly woman with the name “Satana.” With a character drawn much more broadly — she’s a fake seeking Satanist who was raised in the dark faith — our play is much looser. Unbounded by reality I spend less time answering earnestly and more time playing. When it turns out I’m not a virgin — she’s looking for one to sacrifice — our time is up.

I’m a bit disappointed, as the absurdity level was what I was expecting from Foley and Valentine based on the vibe of Best Night Ever, the Hollywood Fringe show the two worked on together about a dual bachelor/bachelorette party gone off the rails that took place in two limos. That show was one of the highlights of Fringe that year, precisely because of the broad but earnest characters KatNip Productions excels at creating. This was what I was looking for, and it was over in what felt like a heartbeat.

“Date” three, with an interior designer named Judy, played out as another earnest conversation. By contrast Judy was as low-key as Santana was bubbly, which somehow led us to talking about the politics of Quibi, YouTube multi-channel user networks and SAG low budget contracts.

Look: I can talk I’m just about any subject, but I kind of hate it, which is why I don’t go on a lot of blind dates in the first place. It starts to feel a but like work. Which maybe is the point, and as part of an in person show the low-key characters do well to keep the reality grounded in a sitcom tone. That’s something that worked well in Best Night Ever and Paulie’s Polymer’s Office Christmas Party before that.

But Zoom is a different beast, and a show made up only of one on ones far different from the situational comedy that a bachelorette or office Christmas party allows for. As KatNip Productions plays with the format — and this was a Pay What You Can experiment as the team kicks the tires on the new ride, which is exactly what more folks should be doing as they get their bearings — it seems to me that broader characters with clear agendas fit the bill better than ones that leave room for players to project their own neurosis into.

Because right about now, we could all use a vacation from ourselves.

Blind Love completed its run, but KatNip Productions is continuing their Zoom experiments soon.

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