"Love on the Spectrum," a show that follows individuals with autism navigating the dating world, is returning for a third season — with one big difference. Whereas the first two seasons took place in Australia, this new season will take place on U.S. soil.
"Love on the Spectrum U.S." is set to premiere on May 18 on Netflix, with a brand new cast of participants, all with the same desire as earlier batches: Finding, or sustaining, love and connection.
The first two seasons featured long-lasting connections, like Jimmy Berresford and Sharnae Ferner, whose wedding was filmed for the show, and created fan favorites like Mark Radburn and Michael Theo.
The show's popularity inspired producer and director of “Love on the Spectrum,” Cian O’Clery, to take the format to new places, literally.
"We want to continue to shine a light on the diversity of the spectrum.”
Speaking to TODAY, O'Clery said he hopes this new season brings a new audience to the show.
"It's a great opportunity to hopefully introduce a really diverse group of people to a bigger audience, or another audience for people who may not have seen the Australian series," O'Clery told TODAY. "We also want to tell more stories. There's more people, and we want to continue to shine a light on the diversity of the spectrum."
Here's everything you need to know about "Love on the Spectrum US."
'Love on the Spectrum U.S.' premieres in May
"Love on the Spectrum U.S." will be released on May 18 on Netflix, where the previous two Australian seasons currently are streaming.
Here's how the cast of 'Love on the Spectrum U.S.' came together
In the US season, viewers can expect to follow Dani, Steve, Abbey, James, Kaelynn and Subodh on their road to finding love — and finding out more about themselves.
On the show, participants go on dates (set up by the producers) with other people with various disabilities or learning differences in their geographic areas, ranging from South Carolina to California.
According to O'Clery, the process of finding participants for this show is more "random," compared to other dating shows' selection processes. The team reached out to autism organizations across the U.S., support groups, Facebook groups and individual psychologists to help the spread of their casting notice, which eventually led to the small group featured in "Love on the Spectrum U.S."
Outside of their dating lives, the participants on the show have thriving support systems and jobs keeping them busy. For example, Abbey has a TikTok account, @hatsbyabbey, that has over 350k followers.
"We spoke to a lot of people. It was great to meet so many people from across the country to finally kind of decide on the people you see in the series," O'Clery said.
Like the two prior seasons, O’Clery told TODAY that the “Love on the Spectrum US” team takes their roles not only as producers and directors, but also as caretakers of the participants, very seriously — ensuring that each cast member feels comfortable and safe on set while on and off-camera.
“For us, it’s so important to look after the people in the show and to represent the community really respectfully,” he said. This season was filmed across the U.S.
Multiple cast members are based in Los Angeles, CA. However, the season was also filmed in San Francisco, Boston, and Greenville, South Carolina.
'Love on the Spectrum U.S.' are there?
This season will span six episodes, with each episode lasting no more than 40 minutes.
Within each episode, audiences can fall in love with the cast and all of their individual personalities — and of course, watch them as they look for love with the help of the "Love on the Spectrum U.S." team and their friends and family at their side.
