Dr Love is back: After more than a decade in cold storage, Dr Yu Wei Siang is reprising his larger-than-life "sex guru" persona.
With his signature glasses perched on his forehead, Dr Love became known through the early 2000s baby-making TV shows such as Love Airways and Dr Love's Super Baby Making Show, and a weekly radio programme called Sex In The Air.
This time, he is helping Chinese couples, instead of Singaporeans, to regain their mojo.
The serial entrepreneur, who once ran an ice cream parlour in Singapore and offered a subscription service that would text women updates about their menstrual cycle and estimated ovulation dates, has spent the past decade building up his medical firm, Borderless Healthcare Group.
"We are getting into the Dr Love spirit again," he said. "It took 10 years but things have come full circle: (it's) back to the egg and sperm."
The 48-year-old graduated as one of the top students of his cohort at Monash Medical School in 1995. He completed his surgical residency in Singapore, but shocked his peers when he decided not to practise medicine. In 2002, he successfully launched an SMS service that anonymously provided teens with sex tips, and the Dr Love persona was born.
The new Chinese-language show, titled Fertility UFO Show, is set against a backdrop of aliens from outer space coming to Earth in a bid to understand why human birth rates are falling.
THE FULL TERM
A week before ovulation, they will be given points to buy, say, five dozen oysters, aphrodisiacs, leopard print lingerie and so on. Then for the next five days, they will have their intimacy in the nest they've built, and we'll use drones to deliver supplies to them.
DR YU WEI SIANG, on his new baby-making reality show.
While the first episode is about practical tips to improve the odds of successful conception (whether through natural birth or artificial insemination), later episodes will see the series become a "fertility travel show" that explores fertility treatments and options in different countries, he said.
This includes a nascent "egg-sharing economy" forming in Hong Kong because of the rise of social egg-freezing, Russia as a surrogacy hub, and sex selection in the US.
Come June, Dr Wei said, he intends to start filming a new baby-making reality show, where 10 couples from around the world will compete to see who successfully becomes pregnant.
Contestants will be ensconced in remote island and forest resorts, and given a budget to build their ideal love nest. "A week before ovulation, they will be given points to buy, say, five dozen oysters, aphrodisiacs..." he said.
"Then for the next five days, they will have their intimacy in the nest they've built, and we'll use drones to deliver supplies to them."
And this is just the start: he envisions a future of cartoons and WeChat stickers based on animated chromosome characters he has created.
"We have a grand plan, so there's no need to milk money immediately from what we do or make it too commercial," he said.
Lim Yan Liang
