Executive producer Jerry Seinfeld’s “The Marriage Ref” (10 p.m. Thursday, WPXI) got a preview last night after the Winter Olympics closing ceremonies and proved to be a good-natured program. As Seinfeld suggested at press tour in January, the show is not intended to be anything more than a lark.
Celebrities who may not have the best marriage track records (ahem, Alec Baldwin) offer their response to a marital spat. For this show, it’s more important to be funny than insightful. And the quality of the humorists on the panel seems like it will determine how funny each show is.
Host Tom Papa, who seems to be aping Seinfeld’s speech pattern at times, plays the ref who makes the final call.
“Keep it simple,” he advises. “Find someone you can sleept next to without throwing up and marry them.”
In the first dispute. Danielle and mark argue over his decision to have his dead dog stuffed. It creeps her out (“I can’t…” she says over and over) and he thinks the stuffed dog is fantastic.
All three celeb panelists side with the wife.
The show’s worst segment features NBC News correspondent Natalie Morales offering facts on the dispute in question. “Marriage Ref” is a cute enough show but is it really necessary to drag the NBC News brand through the mindless entertainment?
The second argument features a husband and wife arguing over whether or not to install a stripper poll in the house. The celeb panelists split and Papa sided with thr wife: no stripper pole in the bedroom.
The half-hour preview felt somewhat padded so it’s hard to imagine how stretched-out the one-hour version will be when it airs Thursday night. That’s just one reason I cannot imagine watching “The Marriage Ref” with any regularity but it’s a pretty innocuous piece of fluffy entertainment.
Posted Feb 28 2010, 11:01 PM by Rob Owen
Review: 'The Marriage Ref' – Tuned In Journal – post-gazette.com