Married at First Sight NZ producers forced to break up explosive argument

There comes a moment in most people's lives, usually in your early 20s, when you look around the room and realise you're hanging out with a bunch of people you actually despise.

Watching tonight's episode of Married at First Sight NZ was like reliving that moment. There was no guilty pleasure to be gleaned from watching the drama unfold, it merely left you feeling dirty and depressed.

Producers had to step in and shut down the couples' dinner party when it descended into a b****y catfight about who said what about whom.

Bel cried. Haydn got aggro. And Andrew bounced around erratically, while Ben and Vicky smirked gleefully at the carnage they had caused.

Meanwhile, the adults (Aaron, Brett and Angel) were left uncomfortable and embarrassed to be associated with the petty scene.

The producers may have intervened when things got out but the of control but they were also responsible for lighting the fire, driving the contestants around in circles and riling them up ahead of the dinner.

The restaurant in question - The Oakroom - is exactly 160m from where the contestants are living in Central Auckland. It is less than a two-minute walk. Yet, the couples were piled into chauffeur-driven cars and ferried through rush-hour traffic to ensure they were as agitated as possible before coming face-to-face.

The incident saw Bel and Haydn finally call time on their relationship and exit the experiment. An inevitable outcome that probably should have happened in week one.

Meanwhile, Ben and Aaron and Andrew and Vicky continue to go through the motions of pretending to like their respective spouses. It doesn't take a psychologist to see these pairings are clearly doomed or that certain contestants are only hanging around to maximise their exposure and build a social media following.

It's a grubby state of affairs. Even the experts seem to have lost faith in the experiment, suggesting, unconvincingly, that things might improve if the couples focused more energy on their relationships and less on bitchy drama.

The golden exception remains Brett and Angel, who only go from strength to strength.

Ironically, they will walk away from this with the strongest public following. At this point, they're the only ones left in the room you might actually want to be friends with.

This article was first published on NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.