Susie O’Brien: Married at First Sight contestants bring out strong emotions in viewers

MARRIED at First Sight’s got millions of us watching but with some contestants demonstrating the “morals of swamp rats”, love isn’t the aim of the game, writes Susie O’Brien.

MARRIED at First Sight should be called Bonking on First Night.

Or Cheating at First Light.

Or Hatred at First Bite.

Clearly, producers didn’t choose couples who were likely to be happy and fall in love.

This season of the hit Channel Nine show has demonstrated this for sure.

Instead they chose some individuals with the morals of swamp rats in order to keep things interesting.

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We love Ryan, especially when he’s letting off steam about Davina.

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How else can you explain the line-up of divas and deadbeats who they’ve served up for us this time?

And how else can you explain the ratings juggernaut of MAFS, which attracts more than two million people a night nationally?

Last night’s show perfectly illustrated the depths to which Nine has plummeted for this season of the show.

Everyone knows Davina cheated on Ryan and yet they made us sit through all the boring other couples before we got to their love triangle — actually, love quadrangle.

We then had to suffer through an excruciating “commitment ceremony” that had all the fun of a scorching case of chlamydia.

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The highlight of the night was Davina’s decision to leave the show. Now watch the ratings plummet.

The funny thing is the way we watch and talk about Married at First Sight.

Why Tracey, why? Tracey decided to stay at the second Commitment Ceremony — even though Dean dropped a bombshell about Davina.

You’d think we were talking about friends of ours who were married for real, not fame-hungry reality TV stars wanting to boost their Instagram profiles.

There we sit, night after night on our living room couches watching this telegenic trainwreck. Sporting greasy weekend hair and stained tracky dacks, we pass judgments on people we don’t know who are aren’t in love and who are only pretending to be married.

And yet it works. We care. We share. We watch. We judge. We bitch.

Davina and Dean embrace on Married At First Sight

The craziness of this season’s cast has brought out very strong emotions in viewers: Ryan we love, especially when he’s letting off steam about Davina.

This means we forgive him for wearing speedos instead of undies and for offering up lines such as: “It’s like shagging your next door neighbours wife and going over and having lunch with him — you just don’t do that!”

Bless.

Davina we hate and are glad to see the back of her.

Clearly the term model is used pretty loosely these days: wearing a T-shirt with a bikini selfie of you on the front doesn’t make you a model, Davina.

And there’s Nasser and Gab, who are just friends although they have had sex.

Gab wants to have more sex although Nasser doesn’t want to have sex with her anymore. Or it could be the other way around. Who knows? Who cares?

Nasser and Gabrielle. Picture: Channel 9

“There comes a time when you have to weigh up your basic standard of self-respect,” Gab tells a producer. Despite her desire for self-respect, she’s staying on the show.

Don’t get me started on Ashley and Troy, and Dean and Tracey, and all of the others.

Luckily, the good times don’t end there. Channel Nine’s Tuesday nights sees MAFS followed by Date Night and then A Night with my Ex.

Who’s got time for real relationships when you’ve got a line-up like this?

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