After A&E’s reality series Neighbors With Benefits failed, the network is now attempting to rescue the crazy idea that viewers want to see infidelity by trying a two-week spouse switch for wedded couples. Will audiences want to watch adultery? FYI (owned by A&E) has greenlighted the Seven Year Switch, an eight-episode series in which married couples put their marriage on the line by shacking up with a “new partner” for a couple weeks. Production is underway for the series to premiere this summer.
FYI assumes that seven years of marriage marks the point at which couples become “restless and dissatisfied” and might wonder why they signed up with this guy instead of the doctor their mothers wanted them to marry. In the series, four couples “at a crossroads in their relationship”—FYI did not say if they’ve all been married seven years—get the chance to shack up with a stranger for two weeks in an “experimental marriage.”
They will eat, live and, yes, “sleep” with these total strangers, the network said.
As with WE tv’s recently pulled reality series Sex Box, relationship experts will help guide the Seven Year Switch couples through the ordeal. At the end of what the network explains is a monthlong experiment, each of the married couples will reunite and decide whether to divorce or renew their vows.
Gena McCarthy, senior vice president of Programming and Development at FYI, described the show as an experiment to determine whether absence really does make the heart grow fonder, sidestepping the whole sleeping-with-a-stranger element.
This immoral show belittles and makes a mockery of marriage. It is also degrading to women!
Please contact FYI (owned by A&E) to oppose the new show “Seven Year Switch” and strongly encourage the network to drop all plans to air the program.
Click on link to Take Action!
Monica Cole is the director of OneMillionMoms.
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