Drama, narcissism and love triangles are all the ingredients you need for delectable reality TV. They’re served up on a silver platter in Netflix’s The Ultimatum.
– where contestants speed date while separated by a wall and propose before seeing each other – has upped the ante. Host Nick Lachey prefaces the show by reminding us that “psychologists say it’s not healthy to give ultimatums,” before imploding six relationships under the guise of a “social experiment”.
The show is unbridled chaos, putting long-term monogamy on a pedestal while encouraging non-monogamous behaviour to stir drama. It’s a mean-spirited premise designed to evoke jealousy. The show capitalises on a core tenet of monogamy: being chosen. The coupling ceremony is a chaotic display of fear and desperation. Thirty-year-old Nate gave his partner Lauren the ultimatum because he wants children, and she’s on the fence. Panic washes over his face after no one chooses him, whispering “I’m going to pick you” to a cast member. In a move of desperation he proposes to his original partner, Lauren, despite their differences.
Another participant, 23-year-old April, finds a video of a fellow cast member twerking on her partner’s phone and accuses him of cheating – seemingly forgetting what show they’re on. After Madlyn debases her partner Colby for the entire show, she angrily confronts him about his text messages with a girl he met at a club. He insists his show partner wasn’t giving him an authentic experience of an “open relationship” so he needed to “outsource”.