‘Married at First Sight’ Fans Can’t Stand Katie and Zach
Many reality shows, especially ones based on romance like The Bachelor and Married at First Sight, have those players people love to hate, or in some cases just plain hate. So it goes with Katie and Zach on Married at First Sight. Zach and Katie were matched with other people on season 10 of the cable reality show – only to go on a date with each other after that season wrapped. That development displeased fans to no end, with more than a few saying the show had hit a new low.
What is Married at First Sight?
It isn’t only America that comes up with “can you believe this?” ideas for reality shows. Married at First Sight came from a Danish show that got an American sheen and title. Instead of having its couples agree to marriage at the end, as most romance reality shows do, this one starts with marriage from the get-go.
The show features three couples paired by relationship experts, so they agree to marry when they first meet. The couples spend their wedding night in a hotel before they leave for a honeymoon. When they return, the couple lives together for eight weeks, and then they decide if they want to stay together or split. It’s a heck of a spin on the old term “shotgun wedding.”
The American remake of the show starred on a channel called FYI and was simulcast on the sister network A&E before it eventually moved to Lifetime, where it airs today. It has spawned no less than five spinoffs, including Married at First Sight: The First Year, Married Life and Married at First Sight: Second Chances
Who are Katie and Zach?
In season 10 of the show, we met Katie, a mental health professional, and Zach, a fitness professional. Katie was paired with Derek Sherman, a cybersecurity engineer, while Zach’s partner was Mindy Shiben, a figure skating coach. Katie and Derek initially made a final decision of yes before ultimately divorcing, while Zach and Mindy said no in their final decision.
However, Katie and Zach ended up saying yes to each other. “I got drinks with Zach. I think it was a couple weeks before Christmas kind of just to talk about this whole experience,” Katie admitted during the reunion show, according to People.
This went over like an obnoxious wedding crasher. On the show’s official Twitter, fans let rip with remarks like “Who gives a crap about Katie and Zach? They’re both HO-BAGS.” Another made like the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons and said, “Worst season ever.”
What has been the fallout of season 10?
Other fans on Twitter took to analyzing Katie in particular, with one tweeting, “She has an unrealistic fantasy in her head of what marriage really is. I felt so bad for Derek, nothing he did would’ve ever been good enough. A few of them actually went for the right reasons, the rest of the season was filled with immature train wrecks.”
While most of the ire seemed to be directed at Katie, fans also took Zach to task, with one saying “Zach passed on Mindy but voluntarily went out with Katie??? He needs those glasses and his head examined!”
On the reunion show, as reported by People, Zach said, “You know, you only have so many interactions with each other on camera, so that was a lot of catching up. So yeah.” He said this while Mindy sat next to him, looking appalled. Mindy herself took fans to task for cyberbullying Katie. For a show about marriage, there’s a lot of disparagement going around.
