Since its first episode aired in 2012, "Catfish: The TV Show" has held up a mirror to our online lives, reflecting how we present ourselves and make sense of love, lust, trust, companionship and loneliness in an increasingly digital world.

Each episode unfolds like a detective show, with the host Nev Schulman summoned to untangle truth from lies, to take relationships that exist only on computers and phones and drag them into our three-dimensional reality.

Though no two episodes are alike, "Catfish," which premiered just as social media and dating apps became dominant cultural forces, has remained consistent: "Hopefuls," in "Catfish" lingo, ask the show for help meeting a person with whom they have developed an online relationship, but have not met in real life.

The hopefuls usually suspect they are being deceived but can't quite surrender their rose-colored glasses.

They have almost never had a video call with their person, and often they have never spoken on the phone.

Professions of love and longing, within perpetual scrolls of direct messages or texts, are frequent.

Meeting, moving and marriage often come up.

The exchange of private details and photographs, including explicit selfies, is common.

The show facilitates the invariably fraught confrontations.

The process is not intended to be easy or fun, and by and large, the elusive partner is a catfish: someone who fabricates an online persona for any number of motivations.