Was there a person in Australia last night sitting in front of ‘Married At First Sight’ who wasn’t screaming at hapless husband number two, Alex the plumber as he stood at the altar: “Run! Run for your life! Run and don’t look back!”
Watching his bride Zoe, the pocket-rocket with the creative nails, look anywhere but at her betrothed as the celebrant bravely went through the mock-vows was quite possibly the most awkward moment on Australian television this year (and that’s saying something given 2015 has been the televisual year which has already given us Pete Evans eating sugar and Merv Hughes kissing Marcia Brady in the jungle – and no, that’s not a euphemism).
As Andrew the-improbably-dimpled plumber bravely grinned his way through the ceremony, the nation squirmed, shouting a collective “Ya think??” at the telly when in a cutaway interview he said something along the lines of: “I’m getting the distinct impression Zoe wants to be anywhere else but here right now.”
It was undoubtedly the highlight in a second episode of the surprise hit show filled with car-crash-compelling moments.
Would bride number two Michelle be won over by James’s winning smile? And what would happen on the wedding night when she finally got him back to the privacy of their hotel room (private, that is, if you don’t count the five cameras and two clipboard-wielding producers in tow) – ripped off his shirt and discovered beyond his mild-mannered signwriter’s smile lurked a set of abs deserving of no less than three slow-mo sequences of James emerging from the surf for no apparent reason in the opening credits.
And what’s with the parents? Whose parents do you know would respond with such nonchalance when the fruit-of-their-loins wanders into the kitchen (with a camera crew in tow) to announce they are marrying someone they have never met because a TV production company asked them to?
Easily the winner on the night in the underwhelming-parenting department was Alex’s mother, who, whilst helping her son do up his top button to go off and marry a girl whose name he didn’t know, helpfully offered: “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. It’s a big decision.” It was, truly, one of the great parenting moments of our time.
Not that any of us were all that concerned with the getting married bit. Let’s be honest, the entire premise of the show is all about whether or not they get busy in the bedroom. Both times that we followed the couple into their respective honeymoon suites last night, the cameras made a point of lingering on the conjugal beds and we all held our breath in collective anticipation.
“Would they? Wouldn’t they?” we all thought. And: “Let’s hope to God if they do they talk about it indiscreetly next week.”
My favourite remains the conceit that the contestants are actually chosen by a panel of experts according to how well suited they are. Oh please. We’ve all been around the reality-television block enough times to know these people are chosen and paired up according to their potential to make great telly.
But we don’t care. Whether it’s a complicated psychoneurobabble algorithm or the manipulative workings of a couple of seasoned reality TV casting producers is of really no concern. Because when it comes to car crash telly, it’s all about the destination, not the journey.
