★★★★★ 0/5

Reality TV needs better transparency as Married couples confirm split

Desperate to have a happy ending, Reality TV should not be holding back the truth to audiences.

11
Leave a comment

2016-09-14_1328

Reality TV has again proven to be a misnomer after confirmation that the three couples who agreed to stick together on Married at First Sight in last night’s finale have already split.

While there are no guarantees of true love in the genre, that tallies to all 5 couples this season who parted ways after being “married” at the altar.

The biggest problem here is that the show sent out the message last night to audiences of a happy ‘ending’ which has been undermined just hours later.

Conspicuously the show failed to include a post-script as it has done in previous seasons, that show where couples were after filming ended 6 months ago. It echoes TEN’s infamous Bachelor finale with Blake Garvey, that drew a flood of criticism after viewers realised the ending had been undermined by a new reality once cameras stopped rolling.

Instead the outcome has been published in interviews on Nine’s own entertainment site, The Fix.

By denying audiences this post-script it effectively misled audiences who had bought into the show across its three week run. It follows from viewer confusion over the absence of Andy & Craig from the group dinner last week. Nine contends the duo had already agreed to go their separate ways -despite Jess walking out on Dave and both forced to endure the same dinner.

On The Fix the three remaining couples revealed their fate.

Keller said of Nicole:  “I honestly do not have a bad word to say about her,” he said. “I still have heavy, heavy feelings for her, but it’s just really hard when she’s indecisive. I said to her the other day, ‘It’s really unfair on me to be going through this – I can’t keep going like this’.”

Michael said of Bella: “We just had two completely different lifestyles,” he tells us. “She’s a natural extrovert, and I’m actually an introvert.”

“I would happily stay at home, and she would definitely not.”

Mark said of Monica: “It just basically comes down to a lot of what we bonded over and a lot of what we sort of created our relationship about was the TV show,.

“Once the experiment finished, we didn’t really have as much in common as we really wanted to have in common.”

Meanwhile former participant Clare Verrall, who appeared in Season 2 earlier this year, is now spilling on social media after her contract with Nine has ended.

https://twitter.com/ClareVerrall1/status/775669476247285761

https://twitter.com/ClareVerrall1/status/775687953888665603

https://twitter.com/ClareVerrall1/status/775691645979201537

https://twitter.com/ClareVerrall1/status/775842031201431552

https://twitter.com/ClareVerrall1/status/775666474014744576

https://twitter.com/ClareVerrall1/status/775580274193076225

Sometimes in TV romance things work out. MAFS, The Bachelor and Farmer Wants a Wife still have couples who remain an item (some with offspring to boot). And other times they fizzle.

But withholding the post-script for Nine’s entertainment site and not informing loyal viewers leaves a bad taste. Reality TV is supposed to be showing us warts and all. This was its historic appeal as a genre.

Next year the show will return with a whopping 10 couples, to be produced by Endemol Shine.

Updated: A Nine spokesperson confirmed the couples had split.

11 Responses

  1. So should the couples stay together just become some nutty viewers want a happy ending? It’s not the hunger games. Reality TV is criticised for contriving things and here they are being criticised because they didn’t manufacture a fake happy ending.

    1. Just do what they did before. Film your ending, give us a postscript update when it airs. Put the info into the show, not shuffle it out through your own website. They didn’t do it because all couples had split.

  2. It’s a tricky one. I have watched two episode of MAFS and that was last nights episode. , And another finale night from another series. So I was curious to why there was no update on any of the relationships this time around. If they had revealed that all couples split, then does it ruin the hope and sparkle that people tune in for? I’d be curious to know how all the die hard fans feel about knowing they all split. Would it stop them watching the next series – or do they just go along for the ride while it’s on air and look at it more of a soap opera – just seeing where the next event each week will take each couple on this unusual journey of marrying someone you’ve never met? It’s just fluffy reality TV after all. It’s certainly doesn’t qualify as a documentary.

  3. ‘Those nasty producers, everyone has split up, it’s not real, it’s all a big lie. Blah, blah, etc, etc’.
    Meanwhile, a couple who Married at First Sight a year or so ago are expecting their first child.
    That seems kinda real.

  4. Gee I wonder how people watching this every night for all those weeks would feel, knowing none of the couples are together. I’m not a fan of dating shows so can’t say whether I would be annoyed or not. Agreed that Nine should have been more transparent about the outcome like in previous seasons

  5. Perhaps there is a cultural problem at Nine that is leading to this type of behaviour (MAFS, 60mins).

    I don’t think you can compare this to Ten’s handling of Blake/the Bachelor. Ten quite effectively did a post-mortem via the Project on Blake’s backflip.

    The irony is that viewers probably care less than the TV execs. While the execs are trying the carefully maintain the “integrity” of their franchises, the reality is people aren’t that hooked on the outcome. Bachelor/Bachelorette in the US has produced very few couples that remain together today.

    1. Strongly disagree. TEN aired the episode and cancelled all media interviews knowing Blake Garvey & Sam Frost had split between filming and airing. It was then turned into a ratings winner for The Project after the audience cried foul.

      1. They held off the Project interview to Mon to attract higher ratings, which worked, and I recall they stretched out interviews for most of that following week.

  6. It is garbage tv that follows through by treating its viewers and participants in a similar vein……..someone should advise Clare to stop holding back and being so gentle now that she is out of contract….

Leave a Reply