contrive

Imagine a world next May where Labour contrives to lose Wales after 27 years of devolution, and the SNP secures a majority at Holyrood and ramp up pressure for an independence referendum.

John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, declared the position to be “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived, or his imagination conceived.”

Despite this catalog of current and easily predictable future horrors, America keeps up a façade of normality: the manic cheerfulness of TV newscasters, the moronic sitcoms, the contrived crime dramas.

This was a huge deal for a contrived unscripted series that simulates the search for love and romance; rarely do contestants find the real thing.

The Guardian is relatively kinder, summing up Season 2 as “so painfully contrived that it’s genuinely fascinating.”