Woman Married 23 Times

Even Jerry Seinfeld has caught the reality-TV bug, though he is quick to note that “this is going to be a comedy show; I’m not interested in the reality of it.”

Jerry Seinfeld will return to NBC as producer of "The Marriage Refs," a prime-time reality series.
NBC said on Thursday that Mr. Seinfeld, whose sitcom was a mainstay of its lineup in the 1990s, is returning to the network as the producer of a prime-time series called “The Marriage Refs.”

The new show is scheduled for the next television season, perhaps as early as the fall. It is not a sitcom but a reality series about funny marital spats — with the emphasis on spats because Mr. Seinfeld and his producing partner, Ellen Rakieten, have no intention of doing relationship therapy on television.

“TV therapy never works anyway,” Ms. Rakieten said, and she should know, having been a producer and executive with Oprah Winfrey’s talk show for 23 years.

Mr. Seinfeld himself came up with the idea for the show, which springs from the natural progression of his comedy. For much of his early career, including the “Seinfeld” years, he was single; his comedy was often based on the trials and tribulations of dating (close talkers, low talkers, women with man hands, women whose names rhyme with body parts, to name a few).

But Mr. Seinfeld has been married for nine years — with three children — and his comedy act after “Seinfeld” revolves around the vagaries of marriage and children. His strength was always playing the observational-comedy card and what he has been observing is married life. As he said in a telephone interview, “Any comedian will tell you marriage is a gold mine of comedy.”

“No one seemed to be doing this on TV,” he said. “You used to have ‘The Honeymooners’ and classic shows like that. So we’re going to try to fill the void.”

Originally, he said, he thought of the idea as a Web site. “I really did not want to do another television show,” he said. But his wife, Jessica, saw the possibilities of a television series. “She really picked up the idea,” Mr. Seinfeld said. “She wrote the treatment.”

One reason: They had lived out the premise of the show. “We were having one of these silly arguments, and a friend of hers happened to be over,” Mr. Seinfeld recounted. “He said he was getting a little uncomfortable and maybe he should leave, but I said no, he should be the marriage ref and decide on the argument.”

In essence that’s what the show is. Each episode will have a theme, Mr. Seinfeld said, like husbands who watch too much sports or, as he put it, “shirt shows — she says he always wears the same shirt.”

After capturing a series of couples having the same argument (on unmanned cameras the producers will place in houses in as many households as they can get to cooperate, Ms. Rakieten said), the show will bring them to the set where a panel of commentators will offer their own opinions on the spat — humorously of course.

“The marriage ref will be like the guy on the field,” Mr. Seinfeld said. “We’ll have a telestrator, instant replays, different camera angles. Then the ref will make the decision. And it could be for whatever reason he wants. He could say to the wife, ‘You had the better argument, but I didn’t like the way you said something.’ ”

The winner will be awarded some kind of prize and then, Mr. Seinfeld said, “We send the couple out to dinner.”

It will all be in good fun, he added, though it may also do some good. “I see it as a pro-marriage show,” Mr. Seinfeld said. “It shows everybody else is doing the same silly things.”

Ms. Rakieten, no doubt matching the desire of NBC, said she hoped Mr. Seinfeld would appear on the show occasionally. “I have no plans to be on it,” Mr. Seinfeld said. Then he added, “We’ll see.”


Source: garmagaram.mywebdunia.com