To cleanse the palate, a new series from Netflix that answers the question, “What if the Mos Eisley cantina were a pick-up bar?”

And which raises new questions like, “Is a man talking about women’s asses while dressed as a woodchuck properly described as an ‘ass man’ or an ‘ass woodchuck’?”

Netflix has ordered not one but two seasons of this hallucinatory variation on the theme of their last big dating reality show, “Love Is Blind,” presumably on the assumption that it’s a surefire hit. In “Love Is Blind” the contestants got to know each other by having long conversations through the walls of adjoining rooms, never seeing each other unless and until one proposed. Personality, not looks, was supposed to drive the attraction. (Unsurprisingly, every contestant was conventionally attractive anyway.) In this one they do get to check each other out before committing — a little, from the neck down. The ass woodchuck can still size up whether your ass is hot enough for him.

But from the neck up it’s lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

It debuts a month from now. I’ll watch the hell out of it when I’m drunk, no doubt. Frankly, I’m glad it’s real: Between this and the photo of Pope Francis meeting Spider-Man, I briefly feared I was having a stroke while checking Twitter this morning.

Didn’t “The Shape of Water” win the Oscar for Best Picture for basically this same premise?

Sexy Beasts is a new dating show where real-life singles sport elaborate makeup and prosthetics to put true blind-date chemistry to the test. pic.twitter.com/ES7pkvWTOM

— Netflix (@netflix) June 23, 2021