Married at First Sight Australia is irresistible TV, but you would find love quicker by throwing a dart

Irish Independent

29-04-2025

An Aussie offshoot of a fiendishly clever Danish show, 'MAFSAU' is one of a number of international versions, but is without doubt the best.
Good weather, sub-tropical settings and the terrifying candour of the locals combine to make it irresistibly compelling. I was recently hooked via a family member who has every contestant's number and wags her finger at the television, berating them for their bad behaviour. She has plenty to give out about.
Season 12, currently airing on E4, has had no shortage of incident, as mismatched contestants negotiate new early stages of relationships in the spotlight's glare.
The show's format is brutally simple: men and women who have never met are paired by a panel of experts and 'married' in front of their families at an introductory ceremony.
The weddings are not real, as Australian law requires a one-month notice period before marriage, but participants are encouraged to take the commitment seriously – with varying degrees of success.
Jamie Marinos has been box office throughout.
A 28-year-old account manager who wears her heart on her sleeve and is apt to feel slighted, Jamie was thrilled when the judges paired her with burly 30-something builder Dave Hand.
At first, Dave and Jamie seemed among the more successful season 12 matches, and watched with a certain degree of smugness the emotional travails of others. But everything changed after 'partner swap week', when Jamie took a break and Dave cohabited with Veronica Cloherty, a pretty but tempestuous contestant.
Thereafter, Dave seemed to rapidly cool on poor Jamie, who let her displeasure be widely known. Dave's neck is obscured by a complex green tattoo, which makes it look as though his head has lifted clear off his body, perhaps in search of a more interesting owner. And who can blame it.
Season 12's most handsome couple are Carina Mirabile and Paul Antoine, whose 'marriage' ceremony was attended by much familial gushing.
They might have looked right, but it subsequently emerged that Carina and Paul had been on a date months before the show, and Paul had decided not to pursue things. Awks.
They got over this initial obstacle, then Paul lost his temper and punched a wall, which led to much general hand-wringing, then got into further trouble by sharing Carina's confidences.
When Paul went to stay with Carina's family, her Italian-Australian mother made them sleep in separate rooms and placed a giant crucifix above Paul's bed.
The attrition rate is high, and at time of writing, only one couple from season 12 are still together – the unimpeachably wholesome Rhi and Jeff.
Where once the show seemed genuinely committed to exploring the mechanics of committed love, it's now a kind of X-rated soap opera using real people instead of actors
MAFS can be educational. I have learnt, for instance, that 'boganic' is Antipodean slang denoting a person perceived as lacking in culture or taste, which is to say excessively working class. In season 12, it has been used to devastating effect.
And this is not the cruellest run: previous series have included affairs, fist fights and gratuitous wine-throwing. In season seven, groom David Cannon, suspecting infidelity, used 'wife' Haley Vernon's toothbrush to clean the toilet. Their marriage was not a success.
MAFSAU, which became a surprise hit during Covid, has not always been this adversarial. In the first four seasons there were less couples, the cast lived separately, and the weekly dinner party and commitment ceremonies – now so combustible – did not exist.
But when executive producer Tara McWilliams took over in season five, she quickly turned it into a controversial hit. Where once the show seemed genuinely committed to exploring the mechanics of committed love, it's now a kind of X-rated soap opera using real people instead of actors.
Trying to maintain order in all this are relationship advisors John Aiken and Mel Schilling, and resident sexologist Alessandra Rampolla. As you can imagine, some of the counselling sessions are excruciating.
As the show has become ever more popular, more participants have signed up for 'the wrong reasons', as some critics put it, by which they mean hoping to become social media stars rather than finding a soulmate.
Excuse me, but is there a right reason to involve oneself in this sort of psychosexual circus?
And if MAFS was a matchmaking service, it would have gone out of business long ago. For all the 'relationship science' the producers claim to employ, MAFSAU's batting average is unimpressive.
In 2022, it was estimated that of the 71 couples matched by the show to that point, only five remained together. You'd have a better chance going out in the street and throwing a dart.
All seasons of Married at First Sight Australia are streaming on the Channel 4 player