BBC One is usually home to quality programming, but this Married at First Sight meets Bear Grylls reality series is anything but
I am an eternal optimist when it comes to new TV formats. A group of strangers pretending to murder each other in a Scottish castle? Wonderful. A jury watching a remake of a murder trial before deciding whether the defendant is guilty? Excellent. Two strangers getting married in the Philippines before jumping off a catamaran to swim to an isolated island, where they will live for the next three weeks testing their relationship and survival skills? ErrrâŚ
That last concept is the starting point of the BBCâs new dating/survival series Stranded on Honeymoon Island. Hosted by Davina McCall (or rather, voiced by her, as she doesnât join the couples in the sun), the series mixes the weirdest part of Married at First Sight â making people who donât know each other get married â with the dullest parts of any Bear Grylls show â dealing with bugs and the toilet situation. By the end of episode one, even my patience was tested.
The opening episode of a brand-new primetime reality series has to grab you by the eyeballs and not let them go. But Stranded on Honeymoon Island takes so long to set up that I found myself drifting off halfway through. It begins not on the white sandy beaches of the Philippines, but in a dimly lit bar where the contestants (daters? Survivors? Who cares) â known only by the numbers stuck to their chests â speed date one another.
The speed dates are utterly irrelevant to the process; the couples are matched off-screen by unknown âexpertsâ before theyâre married off. The unsubtle editing means there are no surprises which couple â Sam and Hannah, Abby and Helen, Moray and Mae â end up at the end of the aisle together, each of them apparently ecstatic with the partner theyâve been hitched to. The weddings are a waste of time, too: all soppy vows and giggles. I donât buy it for a second.
Maybe the survival element of the show will be better? Nope. After swimming from a catamaran to the shores of a stunning Filipino island, they arrive, sodden, at their new homes â met, not with the basic bare necessities I expected, but a lush double bed, champagne, and even a proper toilet. Okay, so it has no walls or roof, but I can certainly think of worse places to sleep under the stars than a tropical beach. Rebrand it as a wellness retreat and people would pay thousands to visit.
The worst thing about Stranded on Honeymoon Island, however, is in the nuts and bolts of how the opening episode is put together. Once we watch Sam and Hannah get married, swim to their beach, and figure out both their living situation and one another, we then have to endure Abby and Helen, and then Moray and Mae, do the exact same thing. Itâs mind-numbingly repetitive. Worse still, the next episode does it all again with three more couples.
While two of the couples get on like a wildfire (no doubt started by the handy flint they have been provided with), a problem arises when Sam tells Hannah that his ex-girlfriend was at the speed dating event. Hannahâs nose is put out of joint by this news, but I canât figure out why. Arenât they alone on a deserted island? Why would the presence of an ex at an event that has been and gone have any bearings on their blossoming relationship? Perhaps Iâm simply not au fait with modern dating rules, but this smells like producer meddling and manufactured drama to me.
Stranded on Honeymoon Island is the sort of slop that TV bosses are being forced to opt for in the hope of commissioning the next big hit. But the big question is why it is on BBC One â a channel that usually denotes quality. Who knew it could sink this low?
âStranded on Honeymoon Islandâ continues tomorrow at 9pm on BBC One
