Should You Make A Legally Binding Lifetime Commitment To Married At First Sight?

What Is This Thing?

Since Americans' attempts to form their own romantic relationships has resulted in a current divorce rate of 40-50%, why not take choice completely out of their hands and let strangers pick partners for singletons and make them get married seconds after they first lay eyes on each other and learn one another's names? After a month, they'll get to decide whether to try to stick it out, or separate. Sure!

When Is It On?

Tuesdays at 9 PM on fyi (of which more anon).

Why Was It Made Now?

As of this month, A&E has shuttered the former Biography Channel and rebranded it fyi (or, as its logo has it, "fyi," -- but I just can't with that terminal comma, SORRY). From what I can tell thus far, fyi's mandate is to bring to air vaguely informational reality programming of the sort that TLC has perfected over the past decade or so. A splashy premise/title like Married At First Sight is just the thing to put a baby network on the map: I mean, it worked on me!

What's Its Pedigree?

I assume it's produced by the usual anonymous reality TV producermeat (...by which I mean no offense to everyone in the field who hasn't managed to make a name for him- or herself like that pile of garbage Mike Darnell did), but it's based on a Danish format. Turns out "European" doesn't always mean "classy"!

...And?

Well, look. The appeal of shows like this is OBVIOUSLY so that those of us at home can judge (a) the kinds of advice being given to (b) the sad and/or fame-hungry people who would agree to a "social experiment" in which they each MEET A PERSON and then SECONDS LATER MARRY HIM/HER. "Oh, so they're all, like, getting old and desperate?" You'd think so, right? But I feel like Cortney, AGE TWENTY-SIX, should maybe give herself a little more time to find her own mate the normal way rather than trust a bunch of experts who include repeat TV offender Pepper Schwartz. As for Jamie Otis, a veteran of both The Bachelor and Bachelor Pad, I guess she had to do this when ABC refused to make her The Bachelorette.

In other words, the point of this show, for all its trappings, is to make the viewer feel superior, and on this front, it succeeds beautifully.

...But?

I feel like we all need to stop with the "social experiment" business now that every reality show featuring people in unusual situations tags itself that way. Giving a show like this a vaguely sciencey description doesn't actually give it any credibility, besides which credibility is deeeeeeeeefinitely not what we're here for anyway.

Then there's the fact that -- in the series premiere, at least -- there are multiple dozens of talking head interviews in which various singles or experts talks about how "crazy" this idea is. I get that they can't not call out that it's crazy lest we think the people on it think what they're doing is totally normal. On the other hand...it is crazy, and the more we're reminded of how crazy it is, the harder it is to take anything seriously. Of course the producers had to build in the option to be like "just kidding!" after a month, but it also lowers the stakes. Is any of these marriages really that big a deal if its potential life span is about the same as that of an Old Navy t-shirt?

Finally, while the whole first episode revolves around matching up the three couples we'll be following this season, they could have cut about half the "crazy" references and replaced them with reminders of how actually tiny this pool of candidates actually was. Apparently, the casting call was the first place that all interested parties found out the premise of the show involved blind marriage, at which point a bunch of people peaced out, "but over fifty brave singles remained." So...fifty-one. For the sake of math, let's say it was fifty-two and evenly split between the sexes: these four experts who are promising to find you your spouse for life are lulling you into a false sense of inevitability by making you fill out a questionnaire. Cortney says it took her six hours to complete hers, which may be because she apparently did it with one finger on an iPad. "[L]icensed clinical psychologist, executive and personal coach, author, and internationally recognized psychology expert" Dr. Joseph Cilona says, "These are very sophisticated instruments that are used by organizations like the CIA." Dude, it's a questionnaire, and when they're called "comment cards" they're also used by organizations like Wendy's. Please calm down.

My point is that given the very small number of candidates, naturally two of the three matches exhibit a significant disparity of cuteness. And some of the supposed settlers are going to have a hard time hiding their feelings on that from the reachers.

...So?

Well, it's garbage -- of course. But the wedding at the end of the first episode (and I'm not spoiling it because they're rerunning this episode throughout the week and also before the next new episode on Tuesday) has kind of an intriguing cliffhanger and I at least need to know how that resolves and then I could stop.

Lord, who am I kidding. Me: