THE ULTIMATUM: MARRY OR MOVE ON: EPISODE 1.1: “The Split”

Here is the decision, and it is not a close one. THE ULTIMATUM: MARRY OR MOVE ON takes couples who have been together for years, has one partner demand marriage, and then makes them both "single" for three weeks so they can date the other participants and decide. That is the format, and everything the episode contains follows from it.
What follows is a great deal. Sex is implied and discussed throughout. Every couple shares a bed and wakes in robes, bras and underwear. Characters compare favorite positions and make crude comments about performance. There are two "f" words inside a steady run of strong language, upper male nudity at the pool, revealing bikinis shot in close-up, champagne to open the night and a drinking game to close it. Couples hurt each other emotionally and bash each other's qualities to near-strangers.
It is not even well made. Two stars: trashy, overdramatic, and frequently out of focus.
So: skip it. There is nothing here worth the hour, and the premise itself — treat your commitment as a trial and go looking — is the last thing we would want a young couple to absorb.

Several couples have been together for years, and in each one a partner is done waiting. So they arrive at a Netflix experiment with a simple, brutal rule: marry or move on.
For three weeks they will be "single." Each will date the other participants, then choose — commit to the person they came with, or leave with someone new.
The premiere introduces the couples and their competing desires, hands them the rules, and gives them one last night together before the dating begins.

Two stars, and that is generous. The show bears a strong resemblance to LOVE ISLAND — same sun, same pool, same manufactured jeopardy — with the twist that the contestants arrive already attached to one another.
The production is careless. The content is trashy and overdramatic, and the episode frequently shows out-of-focus shots.
It has run for four seasons, so it plainly works on somebody. That is a comment on the appetite, not on the craft.

This episode holds a very strong anti-biblical worldview, and it is not incidental. It is the premise.
The show's operating belief is that dating other people while you are in a relationship is essential to discovering the right partner. Everything else follows from that. Unmarried couples share beds and openly discuss sex. They contemplate moving in together. Women openly express attraction to other men and actively pursue them once the dating phase opens.
Underneath sits a humanistic and romantic individualism: each person looks out for themselves while seeking romance, and each is willing to risk an existing relationship for the chance at something different. A light feminism runs alongside it — one woman voices her disdain for cleaning, asserts her independence through her financial decisions and highlights the breast implants she paid for herself; another explains her reluctance to become a mother and shares her views on childbirth.
The cruelty is casual, too. Couples inflict emotional pain on each other and criticize one another's qualities in front of the other candidates. Women dress provocatively to attract attention from men.
The ache this format is monetizing is a real one — people want to be chosen and kept. Scripture does not treat that longing as a game to be played: "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled" (Hebrews 13:4).

There is a real question buried in this format — are we going to build something permanent or not — and the show answers it by handing both people a three-week license to look elsewhere. That is not a test of love. It is a rehearsal for leaving. Our answer stands: skip it. For something worth your evening instead, start with our family-friendly picks.