In recent years, reality TV has been trying to turn over a new leaf. Producers behind shows like Love Island and Big Brother have been attempting to break with the genre’s ugly, toxic past and make their shows more ‘ethical’ by implementing a variety of safeguards, from offering contestants extensive psychological support, to prohibiting them from drinking excessive quantities of alcohol during filming, to banning their friends and family from posting on their social media accounts while they are away.

This all sounds good on paper, but it’s unclear whether these tweaks have made a tangible difference to participants (in 2025, Love Island was responsible for all three of Ofcom’s top three most-complained-about moments of the year, with complaints flooding in about the alleged bullying of contestant Shakira Khan). It’s little wonder, really: TV bosses have ultimately been trying to square a circle. How can you make a programme that doesn’t decimate participants’ and still delivers the kind of explosive drama that viewers expect from the genre? Is it even possible?

As a regular viewer of these kinds of shows, I’d hoped that the answer was ‘yes’. But as time goes on, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that there’s no way, as Guardian journalist and reality TV expert Sirin Kale once put it, to “make the sausage ethically”.

Case in point: a new BBC Panorama investigation into Married at First Sight UK (MAFS UK) has found that two women who appeared on the show allege they were raped during filming, with a third – Shona Manderson of series eight – alleging that she was subjected to a non-consensual sex act. Channel 4 have subsequently removed all episodes of MAFS UK from streaming and linear services, and said in a statement that they had commissioned an external review of welfare on the show last month “after being presented with serious allegations of wrongdoing”.

The allegations are harrowing. But what is more disturbing is the fact that the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time for MAFS; the potential for abuse and coercion has always been baked into the format. For anyone unfamiliar, the show – one of Channel 4’s most popular – has a simple premise: two total strangers pretend to “marry” each other and go on an ersatz honeymoon before cohabiting in an apartment alongside the other couples taking part in the show – or the “experiment”, as the programme’s resident dating experts call it.

Couples are encouraged to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the so-called “experiment”: unquestioning open-mindedness is rewarded and praised, while hesitance or uncertainty is approached as a challenge to be overcome, rather than accepted at face value. If a participant struggles to feel chemistry with the person they’ve been matched with, they’re often lambasted by the experts (who seldom hesitate to remind them that all of the couples must be compatible because they have been matched “by science”, whatever that means) and pilloried by the public on social media, branded as too picky, too sensitive, or too narrow-minded.

So far, so troubling. But to make matters worse, alarm bells have been ringing for years now over whether participant background checks are stringent enough, with a litany of violent and misogynistic men having appeared on the show. April Banbury of season seven said the show “ruined her life” after the man she was matched with, George Roberts, was arrested for alleged controlling and coercive behaviour. Matt Murray, also of season seven, was asked to leave the series’ reunion after allegedly becoming “aggressive” during filming (a claim he denies). Luke Worley of series eight was forced to leave mid-series after punching another groom.

In the show’s most recent series, proud feminist Grace Law was matched with self-professed “old school gent” Ashley Dommett (a doomed pairing which producers surely knew would make for TV dynamite). Dommett overstepped Law’s boundaries throughout the series: on one occasion, Law expressed that some of Dommett’s comments about her made her feel objectified; on another, Law claimed that Dommett would unlock the bathroom door in their apartment while she was inside, despite her being uncomfortable with this. While Dommett was encouraged to understand Law’s point of view, Law was also encouraged to keep persevering and ‘communicating’ with Dommett. The couple eventually left the show mid-series, with Law going on to describe her appearance on MAFS as an “experience that harmed me and reinforced misogynistic stereotypes for the sake of clicks [and] profits”.

Law is right to identify “profits” as the priority for the teams behind shows like MAFS. This is ultimately why balancing ethics and explosive TV will always be an impossible feat: production can’t just let unhappy contestants walk away from MAFS, as they need to, well, produce a show – and a show packed with high-octane conflict too. And so they convince participants that the experts know best, that their gut instincts are wrong, that they should trust the “science” – even when said participants are palpably, visibly, desperately unhappy. As a result, it’s then difficult for participants to take the offer of any post-show ‘aftercare’ seriously: when I interviewed season eight participant Nathaniel Valentino in 2023, he described the MAFS team’s offer of psychological support as akin to “taking medicine from the people that poisoned me.”

The welfare team has taken more drastic action on occasion. Notably, season eight participants Shona Manderson and Brad Skelly were asked to leave the series after it was agreed “that the intensive Married at First Sight environment was not working for the couple and it was the right time to leave the experiment”. During the series, Skelly routinely belittled Manderson; spoke of “allowing” Manderson to express her feelings (comments which sparked a response from Women’s Aid), and told her to “shut up” during a dinner party. But even though producers intervened, it was too little, too late: Manderson, the only one of the three women who spoke to the BBC to consent to being named, alleges Skelly once ejaculated inside her without her consent (he claims this was done consensually).

MAFS is not the only problematic reality show on the small screen. But it’s fair to say that the format, where participants are largely encouraged to ignore their instincts and blindly follow the advice of the production team – often filtered through the more credible-seeming experts – is particularly pernicious. I see why they do it: the string-pulling makes for gripping, jaw-dropping television, and that’s the real reason why people watch (nobody watches to see people frictionlessly fall in love: take Abigail Callahan and John Lindsay of season 10, who were constantly derided on social media for being ‘boring’ and ‘creepy’ after entering into a smooth, easy relationship). But these recent allegations prove that there’s just no way of making a reality TV show centred around dating that is both ethical and entertaining. God knows bosses have tried. Now, finally, it’s time to accept that the experiment has failed.