More couples attempt to navigate the choppy waters of international romance in a new season of TLC’s reality romance hit
Monday nights this summer just got hotter — and more hectic. The smash-hit unscripted romance series 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way returns to TLC for its sixth season, premiering with a special two-hour episode. Back on the airwaves with two familiar couples from the 90 Day franchise (a reality TV “universe” that now counts 11 active series within its realm), the sixth season of The Other Way also introduces four brand-new relationships for reality TV fans to get lost in.
As a massively popular and profitable television franchise, the original 90 Day Fiancé began on TLC in January 2014. The idea for the show was rooted in the crossover between love and bureaucracy, chiefly concerning immigration politics and the red tape that often places stress on couples and their relationships with one another. Not to mention, the drama that comes along with navigating a new relationship under these parameters.
Modelled after the United States’ K-1 visa, which “permits the foreign-citizen fiancé(e) to travel to the United States and marry his or her U.S. citizen sponsor within 90 days of arrival” (per the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs), 90 Day Fiancé follows international couples throughout this gruelling three-month period. Once the partner from abroad lands stateside, the couple has 90 days to “trial” the marriage and decide whether to wed or walk away.
90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way is the same premise, but — you guessed it — the other way around. Instead of Americans welcoming their partners on a K-1 visa, their partners host them abroad, in their home country, opening up the American in their life to new foods, customs, languages and cultures.
Countries on the TLC passport this season include Iceland, England, Ireland, Indonesia, Turkey and China.
The first couple to be mentioned in many circles is the returning problematic pair, Shekinah and Sarper. After having spent some time back in the States between the fifth and sixth seasons of The Other Way, California-born Shekinah is packing her bags to live in Turkey with “reformed bad boy” Sarper. The more time she spends with him, however, the more Shekinah comes to realize that perhaps Sarper is not so reformed after all, and her Prince Charming is really more of a Prince Controlling.
Clips from the new season showcase Sarper’s seemingly unsolicited new-nose design for Shekinah’s plastic surgery, while TLC description claiming that “women from Sarper’s past reach out to Shekinah” this season indicates there may be some new drama in this not-so-new relationship.
Also returning this season are Texan-English couple Statler and Dempsey, respectively. A part of the 90 Day universe’s LGBTQIA+ community, the women are all packed and ready to hit the road in their decked-out camper van. Determined to see the glory of Europe together in a cozy, romantic way, the returning couple may run into issues when it comes to “Statler’s anxiety” and the overwhelming nature of such a “drastic lifestyle change” from the Texan lifestyle she grew up with.
Brand new this season are four more couples: James (Maine) and Meitalia (Indonesia), Josh (South Carolina) and Lily (China), Joanne (New York) and Sean (Ireland) — all three sets of whom are already married — plus Corona (Pennsylvania) and Ingi (Iceland), who are trying to decide their next steps together in Iceland.
Corona, who jokes in the trailer that “there’s, like, five Black people in Iceland,” may be a fish out of water in her new home due to the colour of her skin, but that might well be the least of her worries. Having given up her own ambitions in “a prestigious midwifery program” to move in with her “Viking” boyfriend, Ingi, in his hometown, she is soon faced with the harsh reality that he has a lot to learn when it comes to compromise and emotional availability.
Josh and Lily, on the other hand, appear to have the romance side of things handled — the pair married soon after meeting on a language-learning app — but ever since Josh quit his job to move to China, Lily has been the sole breadwinner, something that does not sit well with her daughter, or Chinese culture at large. In order to make it work, Josh may have to return to the app for language this time, rather than love, and work on getting himself a working visa.
And while tattooed Irishman Sean and his secret American wife, Joanne, are struggling to get the approval of her two sons back home, James is homesick for Maine when he sees his new digs in Indonesia and likens them to “a prison.” Additionally, James is seeking some family approval of his own but continues to fall short of what Meitalia’s (a.k.a Tata) parents want for her.
As always, the new season of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way promises to be a wild ride from start to finish.
90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, airing on Monday, July 1, on TLC