Viewers of the BBC’s new drama Marriage have moaned they had to turn the show off following the airing if the first episode of the four-part series on Monday night.
The series follows Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) and Nicola Walker (Unforgotten) as their characters Ian and Emma navigate the ups and downs of long-term relationships. The couple have been married for 30 years. Marriage’s first episode introduced viewers to the couple and their families, friends and colleagues and opened with Ian and Emma having a ten-minute-long argument over a jacket potato.
Later in the episode, Ian finds himself becoming suspicious of Emma’s boss while struggling to adjust to redundancy after returning from a holiday. Viewers also saw their daughter Jessica introduce her parents to her new boyfriend, Adam, who they were less than thrilled at meeting.
But some BBC fans were left less than thrilled with the drama, bemoaning the pace of the new series which left them switching off. Several complained the first episode was “slow” and “boring”, while others vowed to boycott the rest of the series.
“I give up. After 30 mins I’ve switched over to any other programme than watch this rubbish,” one angry viewer wrote on Twitter.
"#marriage I’ve left - so boring,” another said, while a third wrote: "Well I gave it 35 minutes and I was almost asleep! Such a shame cos 2 great actors! Not for me this #marriage."
A fourth viewer slammed the show as “one of the worst things [they’d] ever watched on BBC1”.
Another wrote: "I was looking forward to this but that's it, I'm done. #marriage." And a viewer complained: "What on earth is #marriage on the old @BBC all about. Managed 20 minutes and gave up. This does not fit Sean Bean one bit."
Marriage’s writer-director Stefan Golaszewski – who also wrote sitcoms Mum and Him & Her – told BBC Blogs that the show’s original scripts were reworked with actors Sean Bean and Nicola Walker in mind.
He said: “Marriage is a show about a couple and how they get through things together.
“I guess I’m trying to write about what it is actually like to be a person instead of what it is like on television or in fiction.
“Casting Nicola and Sean was great as I was able to rewrite the scripts with them in mind and strip away as much dialogue as I could, knowing I had two amazing actors who could do all that for me, which I prefer. I like having as few words as possible for a scene.”
