Seinfeld", and IGN wrote, "The Marriage Ref just felt utterly dead on arrival." New York Magazine characterized The Marriage Ref as "kinda terrible". An analysis of the show in The Hartford Courant wrote, "What do you do if you've managed to pull your network up from fourth place after two weeks of highly-rated Olympic Winter games? If you're NBC, you squander it immediately on an unfunny little thing called 'The Marriage Ref.'" The review concluded that "absolutely nothing funny happened", and called the show "about as wrongheaded an offering to prime time as, well, anything on NBC these days" Ratings In the ratings, the program's debut performed worse than the CBS Network television reality show Undercover Boss even with the Olympics closing lead-in. The pre-empting and tape delay of the remainder of the 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony after late local news in order to broadcast the premiere of The Marriage Ref was immediately criticized by viewers over social networking websites such as Twitter. The week after its debut, The Marriage Ref dropped to number three in the ratings; losing to the CBS program The Mentalist and the ABC Network program Private Practice. The program had been in first place in its first week, but fell 21 percent in the ratings in its second week. The program saw steady ratings decline with each episode since its debut. The first showing of The Marriage Ref had 14 million viewers, and by the fourth full episode the number of viewers had declined to 6.5 million. As of the fourth episode, the program had "posted its lowest rating to date", with a rating of 2.5/7. In the program's sixth broadcast, the April 8, 2010 edition of The Marriage Ref hit a season low with a rating of 2.1, just three days after it had been renewed for a second season. The show's second season premiere had ratings 20% lower than the first season premiere, at a 1.6. International versions References External links American panel games 2010s American game shows 2010 American television series debuts 2010s American reality television series 2011 American television series endings American dating and relationship reality television series English-language television shows NBC original programming Television series created by Jerry Seinfeld