''MILF Manor'' is an American

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

series that premiered January 15, 2023, on

TLC TLC may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2 * TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network ** TLC (Asia), an A ...

. The first season of the show featured eight single women between the ages of 40 and 60 living in a villa in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

to pursue romantic relationships with eight single men several decades younger. In the first season, the show focuses on the men in question being the women's sons. A second season premiered on April 28, 2024. The premise shifted slightly; the single women were pursued by younger men and their fathers.

Premise

Eight pairs of mothers and sons travel to a villa in

to look for love. Upon arrival, the contestants are told that the sixteen contestants were to romantically pursue each other. The announcement is a surprise to the contestants; one contestant, April, stated that she thought her son would be on a separate retreat instead of in her dating pool. The contestants perform challenges each episode. In the first episode, the blindfolded women have to identify their son by feeling the men's shirtless torsos, and the winner of the challenge receives a night in one of the suites with a hot tub. Each mother-son pair shares a room. In the second episode, the contestants guess each other's deepest sex secrets, and one of the women reveals that she has had sex with her son's best friend. The fourth episode introduces elimination to the program, as one mother-son duo is kicked off, and the fifth episode introduces a new mother-son duo (Lisa/Ryan S) to take their place. The show's title refers to the acronym "

MILF MILF (, as if read as "milf") is an acronym that stands for "mother I'd like to fuck". This abbreviation is usually used in colloquial English instead of the whole phrase. It connotes an older woman, typically one with children, considered sex ...

", meaning "Mother I'd Like to Fuck", though the show's definition of MILF leans closer to the idea of a

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

, in which an older woman actively pursues younger men, whereas the term "MILF" only implies the sexual attractiveness of the woman and not her own romantic/sexual tendencies. The second season takes place in a lakefront chalet and instead features the younger men (ages 21 to 27) competing against their own fathers (ages 51 to 57) for the same pool of women.

Cast

Season 1

Season 2

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (2023)

Season 2 (2024)

Reception

Naomi Fry wrote in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' that ''MILF Manor'' "might be a new low for reality TV, perhaps even a rock bottom", stating that the show's premise was "only slightly less outlandish than '

MILF Island "MILF Island" is the eleventh episode of NBC's second season of ''30 Rock'' and thirty-second episode overall. It was written by the series' creator, executive producer and lead actress Tina Fey, and producer Matt Hubbard. The director of the ...

,' featured on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

's ''

30 Rock ''30 Rock'' is an American satire, satirical sitcom television series created by Tina Fey that originally aired on NBC from October 11, 2006, to January 31, 2013. The series, based on Fey's experiences as head writer for ''Saturday Night Live' ...

'', back in 2008." Daniela Neumann, the managing director of the London-based production company behind the idea for the show, said that she does not understand "what all the fuss is about" and that the series is about "female empowerment, erasing the double standard stigma of older women dating younger men, that everyone on the show had a good time, and that every man is someone's son." The show currently has a 14% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, where critics describe it as "psychological torture" and "

Freudian Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...

Horror".

References

External links

Official Website
* * * * * {{TLC Programming 2020s American reality television series 2023 American television series debuts American English-language television shows Obscenity controversies in television Television shows set in Mexico Television shows filmed in Mexico TLC (TV network) original programming