This would be quite an interesting premise - if people really were marrying for good and all, and you saw them in their real lives. But since the marriages are even flimsier than a registry office 'Ming the Merciless' deal ('until such time as your majesty grows tired of her'), with the participants given the chance to opt out every week, it sadly only brings the institution into further disrepute.
But the biggest problem is that nothing happens. In Love Island the friction of living as a group - duly and judiciously aggravated by the show's producers - generally creates enough incident to keep things moving. In this show they don't actually do *anything*, so the only possibility is to keep nitpicking endlessly over every tiny little issue that disturbs their precious, entitled minds. It soon feels like living in a time loop. Having that bizarre panel of pseudo-experts watching on, nitpicking over the nitpicking, doesn't help - in fact without a voiceover like Iain Stirling's or Rob Beckett's to deflate some of the pomposity, it is hard to stomach.
As has become standard in this type of show, there's a massive double standard. Women can backbite, tell tales, stir it, poke their nose in, confront - that's all fine, in fact great (girl power!) and to criticise it is misogyny. But if the men do the same sort of thing there is an immediate furrowing of brows, followed by a hiss of disapproval, and if they persist - well, again, it's misogyny. Look forward to it becoming a hate crime folks! It's sad and actually a little disturbing to see the men, who mostly seem decent enough young lads, feeling they must invariably roll over and beg for the women who are mostly narcissistic, flaky and immature, and a million miles away from being ready to make a go of marriage.
