Is ‘Too Hot to Handle’ Scripted? The Show’s Narrator Desiree Burch Explains

‘Too Hot to Handle’ narrator Desiree Burch shares if the show is scripted.

Now that the fourth season of Netflix’s dating show Too Hot to Handle is over, we’ve watched as another group of sexy singles were challenged to keep their hands off each other to win a grand prize of $200,000. The show about the contestants’ sexless summer is punctuated by quirky quips and laughable commentary given by none other than comedian Desiree Burch.

Desiree has been with THTH from the beginning, and many fans have come to rely on her hilarious takes on what the cast is doing. Desiree took time out of her schedule to talk exclusively with Distractify about the jokes she makes in the most recent season — and if the show is scripted.

Is Desiree Burch’s commentary in ‘Too Hot to Handle’ scripted?

“I cannot take all of the credit for what it is that you see watching the show. Like it takes a village,” Desiree said of her quippy one-liners and pointed jokes.

She doesn’t get a ticket to lounge with the contestants on the beach (despite how much she wishes she could), and instead doesn’t get to meet the cast members until some of the final moments in the editing process — and even then, only through the screen.

“I come in and I’m like, just as excited to see the show as everybody else, except I see a slightly longer one because they’re trying to figure out what the story is and what to keep and what to cut and how to like sort of hone it down,” she said.

From there, she said she has notes from the producers to go off of, but a lot of her commentary is based on her genuine reactions to the season like she’s sitting next to you on your couch watching with you.

“We want to be funny and take a little bit of the piss out of people without being cruel,” she laughed. “We’re always trying to go for the finer cut of a joke — trying to cut it as close to the bone as possible without killing you.”

She admitted that sometimes there’s a fine line between funny and mean, and the only reason Too Hot to Handle does it so well is in part due to the number of eyes that approve the show before it airs.

“It is important to understand that someone’s going to get called out by any joke,” Desiree said. “And the idea is that hopefully there is enough truth to that for it to be like hard to refute and that it’s equally spread out [among the contestants], so it’s not just one person getting hammered on all the time.”

But even the most brutal of burns usually brings on a bout of laughs at home.

How authentic is ‘Too Hot to Handle’?

Former cast members have previously said that sometimes production will offer them a nudge in the appropriate direction to make certain developments happen, but for the most part, it sounds as though Too Hot to Handle is pretty authentic.

Of course, as with all reality television, there is a storyline carefully crafted in the editing process for the audience. Since the contestants are filmed for four weeks, there’s a lot of footage that needs to be pared down into the season’s 10 episodes.

You can watch Too Hot to Handle now, exclusively on Netflix.