The Marriage Ref
Friendly Rating: Allowing for some eeuw moments when the sex stuff comes up, as young as early teens should find something interesting.
Safety Rating: Definitely a watch-with due to sexual themes – it’s marriage.
Quality Rating: Funny, but could pall quickly.
NBC, at 10 p.m.
The idea behind The Marriage Ref, as explained by creator and comic Jerry Seinfeld, is that almost every married couple has the one fight that they re-visit on a regular basis over and over again, and that what they really need is an outside referee to settle things once and for all. Based on an incident from Seinfeld’s life, the show features otherwise loving couples having a disagreement. A celebrity panel tries to convince host and marriage ref Tom Papa to take the side of one or the other and much hilarity ensues. Or that’s the intent.
On the safety side, there is a fair amount of sex talk, but these being married couples, I can’t get too worried about that. Sex is supposed to happen when you’re married and hopefully your kids can get the difference between a one-night hook up with that hottie from algebra and a committed for life relationship that will probably support new kids emerging.
I have to confess, I was prepared to hate this show when I first heard about it. I began to weaken when I saw the presentation at the TV Critics Press Tour last January – it sounded like it had potential. Then many of my colleagues lambasted it royally, based on last Sunday’s preview, saying that it wasn’t funny. And I believed them.
Which is why I was totally surprised when I found myself laughing so hard when I finally got around to looking at the DVR recording I had. There must be something to be said for low expectations.
On the negative side, Papa uses some inappropriate gender terms here and there – he referred to Kelly Ripa as eye candy and the fact that he said she was really smart does not mitigate that denigrating term. The show comes really, really close to making inappropriate fun of the couples – the fights in the preview were almost too ridiculous to believed. One guy wanted to stuff his dead dog and put the critter in a shrine in the living room, another wanted to install a stripper pole for his wife to dance on.
On the plus side, it’s pretty clear that these couples truly love each other. Neither of these fights are going to destroy their marriages. And there is some fact checking going on. When the husband who wanted the stripper pole pointed out that it’s good exercise, he got a back up because dancing on a stripper pole is good exercise. He just lost because he wasn’t willing to do the same.
But I think the bottom line is that anyone who watches this show expecting anything within the realm of information or insight will be sorely disappointed. The show is about comedy and entertainment using a situation we’re all too familiar with – fighting with a loved one.
My husband disagrees. But we don’t need a ref to fix this one.
