(Colby, by the way, also wants kids, but hopes Lauren will change her mind. Never mind the fact that she still doesn’t want kids. After Colby chooses Lauren, Lauren’s ex-boyfriend Nate, who gave her the ultimatum because he wants kids and she doesn’t, stands up and proposes to her. In the third episode, the group is at a dinner where they announce who they’ve chosen to live with for the next three weeks. The effects of this all plays out very early on.

But the manipulation techniques on The Ultimatum are hidden in plain sight: The very premise relies on jealousy and fear, which is aided by a society that values marriage so much, you get a tax break for it. Usually, the emotional manipulation techniques on reality TV shows are more subtle: Taking away phone access, planting rumors, depriving contestants of sleep, and encouraging binge drinking. “But it is the best way to get you the answers you need on a timetable you can live with,” which is the equivalent of someone going to therapy just so they can advertise it on their Tinder profile. “Psychologists agree an ultimatum is not a good way to get somebody else to do what you want,” Nick Lachey tells the cast in the first episode. But the real proof that nobody on the show should get married is because they’re desperate enough to get married that they would issue an ultimatum, trust hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey with their problems, and willingly date other people. It’s worth mentioning that nearly all of the couples are under 30 years old and all of them have been dating for fewer than three years, which is reason enough not to get married. Surely the best way to tell if you’re ready to legally share all your assets. The couples then break up, all meet each other and then, as newly-single people, have the option to choose each other’s partners to live with in a “pretend marriage” for three weeks. It features six long-term couples where one member has issued an ultimatum to the other: By the end of the show, they will get engaged or break up. Netflix’s latest contribution to the canon, The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, which is currently the platform’s second most-watched show in the world, is a little bit of both. Shows like FBoy Island and Too Hot to Handle, on the other hand, are about getting together a group of hot people to wreak emotional havoc in undisclosed tropical locations and do nothing but wear bikinis and participate in humiliating physical challenges. For the earnest ones like The Bachelor and Love Is Blind, the goal is to end in an engagement. There are two kinds of dating shows: earnest ones that perform better in God-fearing areas of the country, and extremely horny ones meant to incubate an army of micro-celebrities.

Married or move on