I almost swiped past it. “Dating Around,” Netflix’s latest reality show, is based on an unremarkable premise: In each episode, “one real-life single navigates five blind dates,” in search of “one match worthy of a second date.” This is the kind of conceptual void that reality television producers typically pad with gimmicks. They make their daters go bikini skiing, or mud wrestle their romantic rivals, or kiss in old-age makeup. But on “Dating Around,” two strangers just get together for dinner and drinks, and this scenario supplies all of the necessary drama. It is the rare dating show that takes dating seriously.

That is a pleasant surprise. Previous iterations of the multiple-blind-date format — early aughts offerings like “Next,” “Dismissed” and “ElimiDate” — subsisted on canned one-liners and bitter judgments. The camera always seemed to be looking down on everyone. Even “The Bachelor,” which styles itself as so hopelessly romantic that each season is designed to culminate in an engagement, is a fundamentally cynical exercise. But by lowering the stakes about as far as they can go, “Dating Around” has managed to dial up the excitement and possibility of the dreaded first-date experience.

The six episodes of “Dating Around” are named for their central singletons — Luke, Gurki, Lex, Leonard, Sarah and Mila — and the show handles them delicately, bathing them in low light and summoning close friends to introduce them via voice-over. Reality dating shows often draw from the aesthetics of beauty contests and sports, but this one is produced like prestige television, filming dates as if they were scenes between character actors.