love in h-town

Hot Houston singles get ready to mingle in Netflix smash Love is Blind Season 5 set in Bayou City

Celeb couple Nick and Vanessa Lachey star in Season 5 of Love is Blind set in Houston.

Like a budding romantic duo ready to commit, Houston and Love is Blind are official.

Producers of the wildly popular Netflix romance reality show hosted by celeb couple Nick and Vanessa Lachey, as well as sources from Houston First can finally confirm that Season 5 is set in Houston with a partial Houston cast. Season 5 premieres on September 22, per Netflix.

News of Love is Blind's new season and locale first circulated in May during the big TV upfronts (announcements of new lineups) that occur each year. Then on August 22, major outlets like Deadline and Today reported the new Love is Blind season premiere date, Houston setting and cast members, and the release date for the companion series After the Altar, which reunites cast members and couples.

Love in the air

Houston First, the official city of Houston marketing arm, confirmed the Houston details on August 24 (top brass there has whispered and hinted to CultureMap for months that a big show was coming) in a mass announcement. Fans can look forward to 10 Houston-centric Love is Blind episodes this year. Here's the schedule:

Week 1, September 22: Episodes 1-4
Week 2, September 29: Episodes 5-7
Week 3, October 6: Episodes 8-9
Week 4, October 13: Episode 10 (weddings)

For the uninitiated, Love is Blind is a romantic social experiment where 15 young, single men and women meet, court, get engaged, and even wed — before meeting in person. (A concept not unfamiliar to generations of Indian couples.) The "blind" aspect of the show finds the interested men and women dating each other in small "pods" (rooms) where they chat and flirt solely through a speaker.

Adding to the intrigue and suspense: couples can only gaze upon each other after an accepted marriage proposal. If things go smoothly, they plan the wedding, meet each others' friends and family and eventually wed if both agree — always with varied results.

Previous seasons have been shot in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Seattle, making big-city Houston a natural choice.

Holly Clapham Rosenow, chief marketing officer at Houston First, had been working with the Love is Blind production company for months. "That crew was swift and worked with a purpose — that is one professional group," she tells CultureMap. Though she lobbied for the show with no guarantees, Rosenow recalls feeling hopeful when she heard that hunky host Nick Lachey was spotted at an airport and here in town.

Blind to a Hollywood presence

Once the cast and crew arrived in town and embedded themselves in the Inner Loop, Rosenow was sure news of a big TV shoot here would be outed by watchful locals. "Honestly, I'm surprised we didn't hear more rumblings that a production team was here taping," she says. "But we didn't — and that goes to their professionalism."

As for spoilers or juicy tidbits, Rosenow can't reveal any confirmed Season 5 Houston locations; Houston First simply suggested shoot locales. When pressed, Rosenow says that the cast "spent time in the city's urban core" and engaged in "city-centric experiences," but, "they could've gone out and experienced other parts of the city." (Well played, Holly.)

For Rosenow, all this work is affirmation that city spending on luring TV shows to Houston pays off — even when local media questions the spends (CultureMap actually spoke up in the city's defense in one investigation). She notes that in just 18 months, Houston saw mega-hit shows Top Chef, The Bachelor, and later Love is Blind shot here.

The city, through the Houston Film Commission, also worked with runaway Netflix smash Mo, which is set here and stars local comedian/actor Mo Amer and a slew of Bayou City stars and notables. The commission has also worked with HBO's House of Ho — centered on the local Vietnamese power family the Hos — all of which proves that Houston is having a reality TV moment.

Rosenow, for her part, doesn't want it to just be a moment. "I feel great for Houston," she says. "I'm super proud of how well the Houston First team worked with these TV production teams. It was so symbiotic and beautiful with the initial relationships we formed that now, there are no formal pitches. It's a 'hey, when can we get out here again and what can we work on?'"

How did that happen? "The word is out," she says. "Houston has proven itself. Houston is now known as an easy place to film, it's a welcoming place for casts, and we're hospitable and will work with production teams to fulfill their needs. And our film commission is wonderful, too. It's kind of the ultimate package. We go the extra mile [for these shows] and it's appreciated."

Stay tuned to Houston

Her wish list for future shows (she'd love to see scripted programs here) include favorites like Queer Eye and really "as many shows as we can."

She also reveals to us that she's already actively pitching the production company behind the comical Netflix food/travel show Somebody Feed Phil — a no-brainer, really — hosted by Phil Rosenthal, the quirky creator of Everybody Loves Raymond. "We're a food town," she says, "so of course, I would love to see that here."

Memo to Houston First and Netflix: If we do land that show, Phil will no doubt need a guide to help navigate our incomparable food scene — and we just happen to know a guy.

Movie Review

Cookie Queens goes behind the scenes of Girl Scout Cookie season

Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Girl Scouts in Cookie Queens.

Few people are strong enough to resist the lure of Girl Scout cookie season every year, with the cookies’ limited availability and unique flavors a strong incentive to indulge. But only the girls and their families who have sold the cookies know the joys and stresses of trying to get people to buy them, a process that is detailed in the new documentary, Cookie Queens.

The film by documentarian Alysa Nahmias uses the stories of four different girls to represent the nationwide ritual for the Girl Scouts. They include 12-year-old Olive in Charlotte, North Carolina, a longtime top seller; 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wants to earn the reward of going to camp; 5-year-old Ara in San Diego, California, whose goal is modest compared to most other girls; and 9-year-old Nikki in Chino, California, who has to compete with her older sisters in the cookie-selling bonanza.

The girls represent a cross-section of both ages and backgrounds, with some girls coming from wealthy families and some girls dealing with more limited means. And how much money your family has makes a big difference, as not only does someone richer have more freedom with their time and supplies, but all scouts are required to reimburse the organization for every box they take in, regardless of whether they’re able to sell it or not.

That caveat makes the journeys of the four featured girls feel wildly different. It’s clear from the start that Olive and Nikki’s families don’t give a second thought to the personal economics of selling cookies, with each girl taking in thousands of boxes at the beginning of the six-week selling season. With both Olive and Nikki rightfully confident that they’ll have no problem offloading their supply, their stories turn to how selling is personally affecting them, with each trying to reconcile the fun of doing it with the pressure they feel from their family members.

Shannon Elizabeth’s story is more harrowing, as her parents feel a strong desire to help her accomplish her lofty goal, but worry that the cost might literally be too high for the family as a whole. More than once, the parents are shown fretting that they won’t have the money to pay back what they owe should they fall significantly short in their sales. Their selling approach, which includes walking through an empty swap meet and standing outside a chain restaurant at night, only adds to their stress.

The most fun story to watch is that of Ara, whose innocence is matched by her confidence. Her parents teach her how much money they’ll owe with her small goal of 55 boxes, but right away she takes on more responsibility than expected. She’s shown making sales pitches and tallying the total number of boxes she’s sold with little-to-no help from either her mom or dad. With her high voice, glasses, and a monitor on her arm to manage her diabetes, she becomes the cute and sympathetic part of the film.

There are times that the film starts to feel more than a little manipulative, however. While many of the moments documented come off as organic, some of them seem like Nahmias is actively guiding the participants in order to get a better story. This is especially evident with Shannon Elizabeth and her family, whose early struggles turn into a miraculous feel-good story by the end, a turnaround that seems implausible at best. Everything with them might have been aboveboard, but Nahmias and her team edit the family’s journey in a way that pushes a bit too hard for emotion.

Cookie Queens, which was produced by a company owned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, helps to give insight into the business of selling Girl Scout cookies for those who’ve only been on the purchasing end of the transaction. The dedication of each girl toward selling their allotted supply proves fun and interesting, even if the filmmaker tries to gild the lily on occasion.

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Cookie Queens is now playing in theaters,