NBC's "The Marriage Ref" sounded all right on paper: Jerry Seinfeld produced panel comedy in which a comedian along with 3 celebrities "solve" a problem in a real marriage. After seeing a few episodes I suspect the paper that it looked good on has long since been burned.
Firstly, the comedian that they picked to host, Tom Papa, isn't well-known enough, amiable enough, or- worst of all- funny enough to carry a show on his own. His 2004 failed sitcom, the punnily titled "Come to Papa", should've shown us this. He's just...not funny. I'm a huge fan of stand-up comedy and even in comparison to working comedians out there right now- his contemporaries as it were- he's not even the mid-level funniest out there. He got the job because he's a FOJ (Friend Of Jerry) and that's it.
The celebrity panel is also just odd. As Papa mentioned in the premiere, the only criteria for being on the panel is essentially fame and ability to spell marriage. This is why people like Alec Baldwin (NOTORIOUSLY messy divorce/parenting skills), Donald Trump (Womanizer, much married), Madonna (Really?!), and Kathy Griffin (Husband embezzled from her) have been panelists. The panel spend most of the too-long runtime zinging each other and making fun of the (admittedly weird) marrieds under the pretense of solving their bizarre issues (eating of duck eggs, Betty Boop statue in the kitchen, taxidermied pet dog, roller derby) by majority rule.
Throw in the "Just the facts ma'am" NBC journalist Natalie Morales (career nadir for her!) and the inane sound effects and you have a whole hour of lame television. The most interesting part of the show is the real couples' odd real-life fights- A vaguely entertaining concept in an "America's Funniest Home Videos" way- and to have Papa just decide "who wins" (Power of Seinfeld!) just kinda kills it. And, for the most part, the celebrities are so far removed from the mundane crap real people fight about that they mostly just bitch about how weird people are. So, they make fun of potential fans.
Bottom line, whether the judgments stick or don't the couples all get a vacation and got to be on TV for a minute so it's win win. The only losers are the viewing audience who wasted their electricity on this dreck.
