When contemplating the nature of love, don’t you ever hark back to the good old days when marriages were prudently negotiated? When a relationship was built on solid, practical ground? Like how handy your potential boo was with a plough, or how well they could withstand an acute bout of dropsy? Married At First Sight runs with this commendably pragmatic attitude towards coupling, combines it with shit-hot science, and takes sexual chemistry back to its natural home: the laboratory.
It hopes to show that modern medical technology can break love down to its component parts with genome sequencing, things written meaningfully on to clipboards, dippers whooshed about in spit samples, and questionnaires analysing the very foundations of how you love. Evidence is then sifted and a slick, biologically watertight and hormonally compatible union created between willing volunteers, the strength of which is tested by a very real and legally binding on-the-spot wedding. What Channel 4 joins together let no man put asunder.
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The concept of a dating show that – all going well – ends in holy matrimony is not new to TV, as fans of high-quality broadcasting such as The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad will note. As the extensive lab coats illustrate, though, Married At First Sight is an in-depth study of partnership. And if, after five weeks of closely documented will-they-won’t-they, they don’t, the matched couples are offered a very real and sensible divorce. I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about wedded bliss, but I know these contestants won’t be the first people to walk down the aisle repeating the mantra that it doesn’t have to be for ever, so at least an element of tradition remains.
The tumbleweed love lives of the urban millennials involved is a symptom of a wider problem, the programme suggests. Thirty-one-year-old Emma is pretty typical of the test subjects as she stoically tells us about how she buggered up her chances of happiness with modern indulgences like “turning up to work”. Across the board, in fact, the hopefuls say that they’ve found themselves unexpectedly in their 30s – around the time most Londoners start idly fantasising about moving from their seven-person houseshare and settling down in a nice cupboard above a butcher’s/VHS outlet – single and sapped of any inclination to mingle.
The show’s scientific approach – and especially the Phones 4 U-inspired rolling contract to commitment – seems like a much better option than a solid decade of terrible dates. But, as most people will tell you, love can’t be quantified with beakers and charts. There is something ethereal in the bond that unites two souls, and it’s best summed up as the mortal fear of dying alone. Maybe the question isn’t whether modern science can determine compatibility, but whether five weeks is long enough to convince yourself that the person you’re now waking up next to is a better alternative than pegging it on the floor beneath a Morrisons turkey dinner for one. Or “let love grow”, if you want to get poetic about it.
This, I’m sure, is the real reason for love’s endurance, and trying to foretell how strong that love will be probably yields results similar to casting a chicken’s entrails over a divining table. This visual metaphor brings us nicely to the delicate matter of if and when the couples will cultivate the petri dish. Mash the mitochondria. Partake in a bit of horizontal housekeeping. When will the couples consummate their holy vows is what I’m trying to hint at here. At this stage, it’s unclear exactly how probing Married At First Sight’s research will be, but I’ll take my cue from the innocent optimism of the participants and hold out hope for some awkward night-vision footage.
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