“What's the secret to a strong relationship?” asks Rob Beckett, who would be better off asking: “What’s the secret to a strong TV format?”
Unbreakable, the latest (worst) reality show to disgrace our screens, has six famous – aka vaguely recognisable – faces and their other halves competing to prove they have the most solid relationship.
Why? It’s not entirely clear, but I’m guessing airtime or a fee.
In a strange mix of Mr & Mrs, SAS: Who Dares Wins and Taskmaster (it wishes), the show – improbably on BBC1 (Beeb, is this a cry for help, are you having an identity crisis?) – gives the couples mental, physical and emotional challenges to “test their bonds to the limit”.
Rob knows it’s weird that he’s hosting a relationship show, quickly making a joke about it and introducing the experts.
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They are relationship psychotherapist Anjula Mutanda and celeb agony aunt Maria McErlane, known for troubleshooting relationships with Graham Norton on his radio show.
I feel sorry for these three, tasked with sitting on sofas and commentating on lacklustre challenges for no apparent reason, their talents completely underused.
The series doesn’t have the creativity of Taskmaster, the flair of I’m a Celebrity or the rage-inducing drama of Married At First Sight. What is it even for?
One by one the couples are eliminated, until an ‘unbreakable’ duo are crowned the winners, presumably to walk off into the sunset, now smug as well as solid.
I don’t even think they win anything and there’s certainly no benefit for viewers.
The couples are not famous enough that we’re desperate to know who puts the bins out, and not ordinary enough to be relatable.
If you want to see Denise Welch fall into a lake and whine at her husband, or millionaire plumber Charlie Mullins lord it over his girlfriend of eight months who is less than half his age, then great.
Comedian Stephen Bailey, motivational speaker Simon Weston CBE, Olympic cyclist Shanaze Reade and Strictly’s Shirley Ballas, all with their partners, make up the numbers at the posh country manor where they have to build a bridge or bungee jump to prove their love.
There is some crying, bickering and frustration, a few deep-and-meaningfuls and back stories, but it all feels interminable.
After each task, relationships are “put under the microscope”, but this mostly amounts to an expert saying the blindingly obvious.
Hung together on the loosest of threads, Unbreakable might have been more aptly titled Heading for a Breakdown.
