In Love For The Ages, now streaming on Peacock, three longtime married couples, whose members are ages ranging from their late 30s to late 40s, are given the chance to live in a villa with young singles of the opposite sex, go on dates and form relationships, all in an effort to figure out whether they want to stay married to their spouses or not. Sounds like fun, right? Uh, maybe not…
LOVE FOR THE AGES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Shots of beach and palm trees, and three couples walking hand-in-hand down a long pathway.
The Gist: The three couples are introduced in the first episode, meet host Adrienne Bailon and meet the young singles. Each couple has similar issues that most longtime couples do: They need a shakeup. Silvia and Sebastian don’t think things are boring, but have different priorities. “This could make our marriage stronger. It could ruin it, too,” she says. Maria and Michael have been together since they were teenagers; Maria still wants to go out and be adventurous, while Michael has definitely become more of a homebody. Richard and Marioxi are in the phase where Richard is trying to get beyond his party boy days but is struggling.
The men and women are split up and go to separate villas with six young singles of the opposite sex, where they’ll live and date for a month before deciding whether to stay with their spouse or go with one of the singles. Each married person gets a “date card”, where they can ask one single person to go on a date, which of course fosters jealousy and other feelings that make reality producers drool.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The idea of Love For The Ages is similar to Temptation Island and The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On, the latter of which is from the same production company. But here, the couples are married, which brings the stakes up to a whole other level.
Our Take: When we watched The Ultimatum, we were seeking the higher stakes that show couldn’t provide, because the couples in the show were relatively new. Love For The Ages, however, gives us those higher stakes; the couples have been together a decade or more, and at least one has kids. But we felt so skeevy watching the first episode, we realized that those higher stakes aren’t all that good, either.
While the members of each couple get “the ultimate hall pass,” as Bailon calls it, something about watching these married people “date” single people felt wrong. What’s in it for these singles to go out with these people? Do they want to start a relationship with someone who is willing to dump their spouse for them? If they’re into matches who are older than they are, can’t they just find people who are already divorced?
That might be the reason why the singles that are throwing themselves at these married people aren’t exactly a group of MBAs. Some have personality, but it also seems that there are men who just want to flash their abs and women who purposely wear clothes that are too small to contain their assets. We see lots of tattoos. In other words, this group of singles make the people on The Bachelor/Bachelorette look like classy Rhodes’ scholars by comparison.
We got the nagging feeling while watching that if these couples needed to go on a reality dating show to test the strength of their marriages, that they were already on their way to divorce. Otherwise, why not negotiate an open relationship? Why enter into an arrangement that will only cause emotional pain for your partner? And why would the singles go through all the usual reality dating show jealousy, rivalry and manipulation to see these people go back to their spouses?
Reality dating shows don’t have to make total sense to be entertaining, but Love For The Ages feels like a show that could actually tear families apart, which isn’t entertaining at all.
Sex and Skin: Inasmuch as we see people in bikinis and bathing suits, there’s skin. Not sure how much actual sex we’ll see.
Parting Shot: After Bailon asked the men to give her their wedding rings, she does the same with the women. But it’s implied to the women that the men gave them up voluntarily, which drives Maria nuts, to the point where it affects her date. “Give me my motherfucking ring back right now,” she says during a talking head interview.
Sleeper Star: Natalie feels like the shit-stirrer on the single women’s side of the show. As it is, it’s fascinating to watch her manage keeping her assets from falling out of clothes that purposely look at least one or two sizes too small.
Most Pilot-y Line: Christian, one of the more meatheaded of the meathed men, tells the married women that he thinks their husbands are partying in the other house. “Girls, alcohol, the percentage of girls higher than the percentage of guys… they’re having a party.” Would any of these women really leave their husbands for this dude, despite his looks?
Our Call: SKIP IT, mainly because you’ll likely feel completely disgusted with yourself while watching the married couples of Love For The Ages “test” their relationships. Given what they’re going through, even a messy divorce sounds like it would be less painful than this show.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Love For The Ages’ On Peacock, Where Three Married Couples Go On “Dates” With Young Singles And Decide Whether To Stay Married appeared first on Decider.
