Would it really be a season of Married At First Sight (MAFS) if the participants weren’t forced to rank images of their co-stars by attractiveness? That’s right, the reality show officially brought back the infamous photo ranking challenge in Tuesday night’s episode — this time repackaged as part of the brand new Revelations Week.
Thankfully, there weren’t any major blunders or cringeworthy attempts at “just being honest” this time around, and it appears the participants have finally learned the challenge is actually a trap.
Stella Mickunaite and Filip Gregov, Alissa Fay and David Momoh, and Gia Fleur and Scott McCristal all put their partners in first place, while Danny Hewitt discarded the other brides’ photos altogether after ranking Bec Zacharia number one.
Mel Akbay was the only person with a somewhat controversial ranking, putting her partner Luke Fourniotis in second place behind Grayson McIvor.
John Aiken reveals why the MAFS photo ranking challenge is important
At the end of the day, though, what’s the point of the MAFS photo ranking challenge?
Not only can it create cracks in the relationship when someone’s partner doesn’t deem them attractive enough (or lies about the ranking and makes them feel even worse), but the other participants in the experiment often catch strays when someone ranks them last because of their height, age or “weird vibes”.
Well, relationship expert John Aiken told PEDESTRIAN.TV that the challenge is essential to the experiment, as it showcases an individual’s level of emotional intelligence.
“What we’re looking for is, how do they handle delicate conversations? How are they going to workshop this with their partner at the time? Do they read the room? Have they got the ability to be self-aware here? And to be honest, I think most of them do; they handle it really well,” he said.
“But then, surprisingly, every year, some people completely drop the ball with it. And so it’s a challenge which is looking at the ability to look at a big picture, and what is their level of emotional intelligence.”
John added that if someone does badly in the photo ranking challenge, it’s unlikely that they will handle themselves well in the experiment.
“It really suggests they struggle moving forward in the experiment because they’re not able to handle challenges and they’re not able to take their partner’s feelings into account and those sorts of things,” he continued.
“So it’s certainly a polarising challenge for the audience, but it is one that can tell us a lot about somebody.”
So, love it or hate it, it looks like the photo ranking challenge is firmly here to stay. Because no matter how clear it is that you simply MUST put your partner first on the reality show, someone will always fail spectacularly for our viewing pleasure.
