The next season of Married at First Sight begins on January 30, and no, I cannot (will not) contain my excitement.
Because I have ~secrets~. Big ones. About how the upcoming season is going to be unlike anything before it.
Indeed, Married at First Sight has always had the basic ingredients to be my ideal reality TV show.
It has wedding dresses:
Bitchy friends and/or sisters giving unwarranted opinions about wedding dresses/grooms:
Fake weddings.
And, of course, fleeting love between absolute strangers.
But for the upcoming season, Married at First Sight has made a few changes to the format and structure of the show. We'll still have our weddings with strangers and our awkward in-laws and people matched for reasons that sound a lot more like 'dra-mah' than 'sci-ence', but season four legitimately feels like reality TV on steroids. And I love it.
Yes, really. All 10 couples are living in the same apartment block.
I JUST KNOW SOMEONE IS GOING TO HOOK UP WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S WIFE AND IT GIVES ME SO MUCH JOY.
The theory is that the couples will have a 'support network' to help them through the challenges that come with getting married to a complete and utter stranger on national television. But somehow I think a very clever producer did some maths and worked out that with 10 arbitrarily matched couples, someone is going to cheat if the temptation is there. And to that producer, I salute you.
You know how every season there's at least one couple that makes you think, "WAIT, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL?"
They seem completely incompatible, they're from different ends of Australia, they have entirely different values, and they appear to have zero chance of ever making it work.
Well, this season, the couples 'check in' with the experts once a week. During these sessions, they're able to challenge the experts if they don't understand why they were matched together in the first place. I just really, really wish this had existed during Clare and Jono's season.
In past seasons, the couples are matched and don't officially choose whether to stay committed to each other until the finale. Sure, some couples fight and break up during the process anyway, but technically, they have until the end of the 'experiment' to make their decision.
In season four, however, commitment ceremonies occur once per week, and couples are asked whether they will continue to move forward as a couple or choose to end the relationship. The idea of these sessions is also to provide psychological support and counselling to the couples, who often find themselves experiencing issues early on that they can't seem to resolve.
To be honest, with 10 couples things are probably going to get a little confusing, so I'm happy to have them gradually drop like flies.
IT'S LIKE BIG BROTHER BUT THEY'RE ALL BEING FORCED TO GET MARRIED TOO.
This just adds to the drama, really, because people are obviously going to be snarky and cliquey and make each other cry.
We also get to know peoples personalities/level of wanker-ness far earlier than usual, as they interact with their fellow fake-brides/grooms.
In the past, bickering between couples has been restricted to the one-off infamous cocktail party. But it's 2017. We deserve more than that. Which brings me to...
Every. Goddamn. Week.
YOU CAN'T TELL ME PEOPLE AREN'T GOING TO CHEAT. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS SEASON.
Surely.
Remember what happened in one cocktail party last season? Keller slut-shamed Bella for talking about sex, then Bella's fake-husband Michael tried to defend her, then Keller tried to 'take it outside' (they were outside) and Michael had a dig at Keller about his tattoo.
It's the best part of the series and now it's happening every week. And I'm so happy.
We have but a week and a half until it all unfolds, so if you have any career goals/fitness plans/social commitments you wanted to carry out this year, I'd get them done now. You're about to be significantly sidetracked.
Because it's about to get FAKE MARRIED TO STRANGERS up in HURRR.
Listen to the latest episode of Mamamia's TV podcast The Binge, where Laura Brodnik and guest host Tiffany Dunk talk about Undressed, Revenge Bodies, The Family Rules and Glitch.
