Dermot O’ Leary becomes marriage guidance councellor with the help of three “top” celebs who attempt to determine who is right in couple’s comedy marital arguments. It didn’t do too well in the States, but I think there’s something quintessentially British in this sort of thing so it might do alright. And if it doesn’t, you can turn over and watch Lee Mack’s All-Star Cast on BBC1 at 9:40, both of these are Endemol productions, incidentally. ITV at 9pm.
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Right – if this is gonna work and actually stop viewers from turning over within 10 seconds, every single couple has to be really quite quirky like this pickle pair.
The dispute over lists was like watching paint dry – even Jimmy Carr’s gags couldn’t rescue it.
I know I’m not the target audience, but this isn’t very good.
I thought the reveal of who won was a bit of a damp squib.
Is this the best that ITV can offer for a Saturday night?
This is dire.
Dermot just said to Martin there: “you do know you don’t win anything, right?” Therein lies the problem – there just doesn’t seem to be a point.
I don’t know whether my biggest problem’s:
1) the terrible payoff – or lack of one
2) the casting (couples 2 and 3 at least have a mildly diverting quirk to them, so why open your brand new series with the ‘who cares’ couple 1?)
or 3) the timeslot – I don’t know where I’d put this. But primetime Saturday ain’t right at all.
The panel – Sarah Millican particularly – don’t seem to be bothered; Dermot’s perfunctory; and the whole thing just reeks of apathy and an incomplete thought.
In the US show, the audience vote to determine which of the three winners is rightest for $25k and a billboard.
I don’t actually think this was as awful as people have been making out but I’m not getting overexcited either. I don’t think it’s deep enough really, I think this sort of thing requires a certain amount of ‘truthiness’ to really work well.
Yes, I think unless there’s some opportunity for couples to go “Oh, YOU do that!” then it seems like a freak show with not very freaky people.
I still maintain Dermot is a terrible choice for this kind of format. He’s not even married, or is that meant to be the point to not put off the young ‘uns?
The set was very ITV – too bright and too large. And the music had the acoustics of a Nokia ringtone.
Actually, none of the panel is currently married either!
At least the set was nowhere near as large as NBC’s. That set was nothing short of massive.
I can safely say this is the last ep of Marriage Ref i’ll be watching.
Gotta laugh at the EndemolPress twitter. Telling us Lee Mack is now on BBC One and for us to tune in.
Which is getting even more of a mauling on the fora than The Marriage Ref.
‘Dated’ springs to mind – just a mishmash of stolen, very old skits and features.
We were promised that Lee Mack was going to be THE big hit of the Summer. Let’s see…
Lee Mack’s show is too long, a 30 minute slot would have given a sharper show. I think it needs serious retooling but I can see some potential.
The BBC are usually patient with their stars, even that the awful John Bishop stand up/clip show from last Summer was given a recommission.
See also ‘Graham Norton’s Bigger Picture’, which eventually dropped the news and morphed into the Graham Norton show.
The thing is I saw the last twenty minutes of this and it felt to me basically like Graham Norton’s show, but with fewer references to dildos. I thought it was OK, but it certainly wasn’t killer.
Apparently Casualty got more than twice as much as anything else in the slot last night, and that got 4.9m.
The implication is that yes indeed, TMR is matching the huge success of the US version.
It got 2.45m with +1. That’s a terrible start – even Magic Numbers launched with 2.7m!
Penn and Teller and Odd One In did better for ITV, with 3.5m for Odd One In and a solid 4.2m for Penn and Teller (it got 4.1m in Jan). Lee Mack got 4.2m.
Most of my predictions turned out right: Lee Mack’s show was the biggest success of the new programmes, Odd One In was even bigger than the last series which began with 2.9m last year. The only shock for me is how badly The Marriage Ref started. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but 2.45m is very disappointing for what I still believe to be a promising format :(.
Newsflash: nobody cares.
Promising format it may be but the show itself was dreadful. Also, you weren’t quite right as Penn and Teller was the highest rating new show with 4.2m, as Lee Mack had 4.19m 😉
Sorry Score but you’re wrong Penn and Teller had just 3.9m on ITV1 despite all the promotion, down 300k from the pilot in january despite weaker opposition. It also had 300k on +1.
It also had only a 17% share compared to Lee Mack who had a 21% share ahd 4.2m viewers.
Odd One in is down by over 1m viewers from its first series finale.
Oh no, they’ve let jakelyle/tomgreen/sallyk/@sax1111 out of the mental hospital without his medication again 🙁
Quick, everyone run for your your lives!
The share for P&T was 19% without +1 and 20% with +1, by the way.
To be fair we’re comparing P and T with a show which was on a holiday in winter when there’s a much larger audience. For a summer show 3.9m is disappointing but not completely awful
I’d have liked it to do better than The Magicians, but there we are.
This was a rather pointless hour of television. There’s no prize for the contestants or incentive for people to watch this show. The first pairing were awfully dull and the worst possible way to start a brand-new series off with.
I only watched The Marriage Ref to see the Devised by Jerry Seinfeld credit, because I’m a massive Seinfeld fan, but we didn’t even have that. I thought it was terriby flimsy, it would work as a segment in some other show, but not on its own. It’s going to live and die on the quality of the panellists and if they’re booking the likes of Geri Halliwell that’s not looking good. Also the break structure was terrible, interrupting all three midway through for ads.
Lee Mack’s show reminded me a bit of – gaps! – Totally Saturday and also, I think even more so, Passport to Paradise. That show even had a lookalikes section as well. This didn’t seem much of a format, but it worked better than those two shows because of Lee’s quick wit and stage presence, it was much more amiable. But it should either a) be on two hours earlier or b) be on at the same time and they stop bleeping out the swearing.
Er, that should be “gasp”, natch.
Just like the American version, I’m at a loss as to why everybody hates the show so much. Once again, I’m finding the show very funny, and can see very little to fault. Maybe O’Leary wasn’t the best choice for a host, and the couple casting was a bit dull, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.