It's 15 years into the future and science has developed dramatically. A new process known as ‘The Test' has taken the world by storm and with a simple DNA match, Soulmates are being paired up across the globe. It's simple a concept. A tiny bit of DNA is taken from your eye, uploaded onto the database, and once your Soulmate has also done the same thing you are both notified. But finding your perfect life partner can bring a lot of complications, six of which are explored in the anthology series Soulmates.
The series opens with a montage of how the process happens via an advert for the product. Over the course of the show, various outcomes from taking the test are explored. What happens if you're already happily married to your college sweetheart but you just want to ‘make sure' you are perfect for each other? That is the theme of episode one starring Kingsley Ben-Adir and Sarah Snook (Succession).
Maybe you took the test years earlier before you got married, and now your ‘soulmate' has turned up at the door – what do you do? If you leave your husband for your soulmate only to find out that it's not all it's cracked up to be, can you go back? Or has the damage already been done?
What if you fall in love on the way to meet your soulmate or worse, you've been paired with somebody so psychotic that you start to question what kind of person are you to have been paired with them in the first place? And then there's the awful situation of discovering that you've been matched but your soulmate has died since taking the test as is the case in the heartbreaking episode five.
Soulmates has a very Black Mirror feel to it. Futuristic but not so much that it becomes unbelievable or unrealistic. And while it tackles the subject of true love, there's a distinct lack of love in it. It's more about the idea of love and finding it than actually being in love. An interesting concept for a show and one that does make you question the dangers of technology as it becomes more and more pervasive in our lives. It's also a good reminder that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
