When news broke that Channel 10 was bringing the legendary TV show Catfish to Australia, people lost their damn minds.
It's not hard to imagine why: it's bloody amazing but also devastating watching people get lied to and have their heart broken on national television.
It was supposed to be hosted by Queen of Being Catfished (more on that later) and former Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan, however it seems like the network has struggled to get the show off the ground.
A Channel 10 spokesperson has told TV Blackbox: "We swear, we didn't Catfish you! Unfortunately, Catfish Australia is no longer part of our 2019 Pilot Week schedule."
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"We cast a line, but didn't have the right bait to catch you a catfish in time."
That essentially means the network found it mildly difficult to get people to agree to be on national television and allow audiences to watch second by second as their world seemingly crumbles down - yeah, wonder why it was hard.
The show is incredibly successful in America, but maybe they're wired differently over there.
Now, if we want to read between the lines here, while it's no longer a part of this year's Pilot Week schedule, that's not to say that the project has been binned off completely. Producers could just need a bit more time sourcing the talent, delving into their backgrounds and finding the people who catfished them.
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Channel 10 assures us there are plenty of good shows in their line-up, including Sydney's Crazy Rich Asians, I am...Roxy!, My 80-Year-Old Flatmate and Part-Time Privates.
Now, if you're wondering why Donovan was enlisted to be the host of the now-cancelled show, she actually has a catfish story to end all catfish stories.
Donovan revealed she was in a six year online relationship, only to find out the person she was 'dating' wasn't who she thought they were.
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She received a call from a random number shortly after her 2005 reality TV show win and despite not knowing who it was or wanting to speak to him, she kept answering his calls.
"When you're on the road as a 16-year-old, you can't go out to pubs and clubs with the other people. You get sent to your room. I was like, 'This is interesting'. It became comfortable to talk to this person every day," she told Andrew Denton on The Interview.
When she finished her Australian Idol tour she came back to Sydney, where this 'Campbell' guy was living but he kept throwing up excuses to not see her.
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He sent his friend Olga to hang out and Casey, who never suspected Campbell and Olga could be the same person. Campbell eventually convinced Casey to have sex with Olga, even though she didn't feel right about it.
"I think by that time I was just willing to do anything to see him. My intuition was saying, 'This isn't right, don't be a dickhead' - but I'd put so much effort and time in this that he had to be real. He HAD to," she said.
She eventually found out the truth and wound up up spending a lot of time in therapy, where she got the help she needed. So you can see why she's the perfect fit to help some of the people on the Aussie version of the show.
Featured Image Credit: MTVTopics: Entertainment, TV and Film, Australia
