Surprise, surprise. Love Island fans aren't happy.
Love Island: All Stars kicks off tonight (January 13) and the full line-up of starting islanders was announced last week. There are some huge Love Island names in there, like Scott Thomas (series two), and Marcel Somerville and Gabby Allen (series three), as well as some more recent stars like Luca Bish (series eight) and Catherine Agbaje (series 10).
But Marcel, who is entering the show after the breakdown of his marriage, has got people talking because he's the oldest ever contestant at 39. Even former islander Frankie Foster said some of the cast are "too old" and Ovie Soko, at 33, said he's past it too.
The likes of Catherine and Luca are bringing the average age down, as they're 24 and 25 respectively. And the average age of the starting line-up is 30 – much older than a normal series of the show.
Here's the issue, though. With all the respect in the world, if ITV bosses only brought in the youngsters they'd be left with, well, Love Island: Are They Stars?
Fans want the memorable cast members back – and this year we've got quite a lot of them. Scott was an OG from series two, while Marcel and Gabby was finalists in series three.
They're the sort of people I want back. They're the people who first got me hooked on the show.
Last year's debut All Stars series had a good mix of people, but most of the cast came from series five, six and seven. While not all fan favourites, the majority of the cast were all memorable from their own series which is why they deserved to be on All Stars.
Last year, the oldest contestants were Hannah Elizabeth and Chris Taylor at 33, while the youngest were Tom Clare, Liberty Poole, Toby Aromolaran and twins Jess and Eve Gale, at 24.
The average age last year was 27, though of course Marcel and Scott skew it a bit this time around. But that's to be expected, surely?
Love Island has been on screens for 10 years now. The stars of the early series are getting to be a decade older than they were back then.
If we want Love Island: All Stars, then we have to be ok with that. Plus, it's not like people don't deserve to find love once they hit 30 – although whether most of the cast return to the show for that and not a few more sponsorship deals is a whole other argument.
Nowadays, age gap romances are a huge talking point, especially when the man is older than the woman. If Marcel was to couple up with Catherine, for example, we'd be getting into Leonardo DiCaprio territory...
But we've seen literal teenagers on the show before, and fans had things to say about that too. Amelia Peters was 18 when she entered Casa Amor in series three, while Bethany Rogers (series one), Emma Jane Woodham (series two), Gemma Owen (series eight) and Amber Wise (series 10) were 19.
Older fans of the show have said they feel "grimey" watching the teenagers looking for love, suggesting even a three or four year age gap between contestants at that age is a big difference. But Love Island: All Stars physically can't have teenagers, because they'd have had to be even younger on their original series.
Love Island: All Stars can't work without the older cast members. Yes, it might mean there are some big age gaps which could seem weird to some viewers – but there's nothing hugely wrong with that.
Last year's winners Tom Clare and Molly Smith have a five-year age gap and are still going strong now, so it's not all that bad.
But Love Island fans are some of the hardest people to please, so sadly for ITV, when it comes to Love Island: All Stars, they will never win.
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