Shirin Kale

So it is reality TV, but it's more about setting up the cameras and seeing what happens.

It's a bit more fly on the wall.

Fly on the wall, hearing a bit more closely to that original social experiment construct.

Then what happened was that the Australian married at first sight became this huge ratings blockbuster success.

And so the British format changed in order to emulate that Australian success.

And it became, I would say, a much more aggressive, much more confrontational show.

You keep saying that.

Don't raise your voice at me.

So you'd have 10 contestants and the couples would be living together for around two months.

They would have weekly dinner parties with all of the contestants together, which were often basically just big arguments.

And one thing that they did as well when the format changed was they put all the couples in together.

So previously the couples had lived in apartments on their own apartments.

But when the format changed, the couples were living very close to each other, which also meant that you had things like adultery, couple swapping, that sort of stuff, which again, it makes a very dramatic reality TV.

But of course, there's going to be a human cost to that.

Yeah, yeah, they have.

I've actually interviewed a couple who did fall in love and stay together.

And so in my opinion, what generally happens is that there'll be one or two couples that seem quite well suited and they will be the ones that you're kind of rooting for throughout the show.

You really think they're going to pull through and make it.

And as a viewer, you're very invested in that.

But then there'll be couples that are clearly absolute car crashers who cannot stand each other and want out from day one.