TV Review: The Ultimatum: Queer Love

Rating: 75/100

Do not watch Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Queer Love.

That’s not to say that the show is bad by any means. It’s trashy television at its finest. But, far from the usual metaphor of an emotional rollercoaster, The Ultimatum: Queer Love is more of an emotional free-fall ride because, after a very short setup, the show turns into an emotionally raw free-for-all that is all-consuming. What’s worse is that turning off the show is not a relief because every moment not spent watching this show is just as consuming as the participants’ love lives will be at the forefront of your thought in your every waking moment. The emotional investment gets to be a lot.

The premise is deceptively simple. The show starts out with five couples in long-term relationships, one member of whom wants to get married, while the other is dragging their feet. The ultimatum is this: Marry me, or we break up. Each of the couples agree to “break up” after their first night in the experiment and go on dates with members of other couples in the experiment. New couples will then form as the participants pair off into a three-week trial marriage with the person in the experiment that they find most compatible. After the three weeks is up, they move in together for another three-week trial marriage with the person they came to the experiment with. Then, at the end of the experiment, they have to make the decision to either marry the person they came with, marry someone else, or simply leave single. This is the show’s second season, with the first season focusing on heterosexual couples and the second season, subtitled Queer Love, focusing on wlw relationships.

It’s an inherently bizarre and cruel experiment to play with people’s lives, first and foremost. And the entire experiment assumes that everyone involved is in a monogamous relationship, with any viewers who engage in polyamory likely to be yelling, “Why don’t you just date both of them?” at the screen rather frequently. But then, polyamory would hardly solve these couples’ problems. Truly, can anyone who makes the decision to take their partner on a show like this even be considered a good partner?

Admittedly, the only reason we’re even talking about this show right now is because they did a queer season. Doing an entire season with wlw couples was guaranteed to open the show up to a new audience. And certainly, making the participants queer adds a certain element to it because the love triangles can get more complicated, with one person potentially pursuing both members of a relationship (which does happen, albeit briefly).

But the main reason this season was done this way seems to be as a marketing gimmick. Queerness has a built-in audience, and the LGBTQ community is obviously going to be ready to sink their teeth into something like this. But is this a positive for the queer community to be seen in this light? In the midst of all the name-calling and catty behavior, is there something that’s supposed to be empowering for queer people? There’s also the sense, when the whole thing is over, that some seriously toxic people got involved in the show and were egged on by the show’s premise. The reunion special reveals that one person involved in the experiment was arrested in a domestic dispute in the year between the end of the show and the reunion special.

In spite of all that, it’s hard to argue that the show isn’t entertaining and compelling. I won’t deny there are characters who are shockingly relatable, and there are plot lines you will inevitably root for. But it also feels tawdry and dirty and incredibly invasive into someone else’s personal life. And yet, that’s undeniably a recipe for a very entertaining series. It’s just hard to walk away from the whole experience feeling particularly good about your involvement with it.

Photo courtesy of The Ultimatum