The unofficial rule of filming wildlife is to never intervene. It’s one of the reasons nature documentaries take so long to make. The opposite is true of reality TV. To make regular people entertaining over the course of a few weeks, a high level of intervention is required. The cast is best kept in a controlled environment where relationships usually forged over years can be expedited to a matter of months.

Just like we don’t want to see the 21 hours in a day that lions sleep, reality TV shows are supposed to only show us the most heightened and entertaining version of “reality”. But in the case of Peacock’s Couple to Throuple, the reality we are served is not the one we signed up for.

Sequestered to a rainforest resort in Panama, four couples with no experience in polyamory explore the idea of bringing a third person into their relationship in Couple to Throuple. While on the surface this may seem like a premise that subverts traditional marriage and the heteronormativity of shows like The Bachelor or MAFS, what actually plays out is a bizarre reinforcement of the nuclear twosome where husbands and wives hold the power and singles are traded and discarded in a dystopian, televised meat market.

Presumably kept in a cage off camera, a group of 14 poly-experienced people are made available for these four “curious” couples to browse and take back to their oversized beds. Now, if we were to believe what the racy promos and Slave Princess Leia-esque outfits suggest, producers thought this arrangement would inevitably lead to a season of steamy, voyeuristic, three-way sex. What they seemingly hadn’t considered is that being polyamorous rarely means wanting to be a couple’s “experiment” or sleeping with strangers without a single meaningful conversation. In fact, it wouldn’t have taken much Googling to learn how resentful the polyamorous community can be towards that assumption.

Although on the first night of episode one we did see a few “throuples” go all the way, by episode two several singles had realised that this wasn’t the venture they’d signed up for, and while they may take polyamory seriously, their designated couples were either here to avoid going to therapy or just wanted a threesome.

“I wish I hadn’t been your first choice because I feel like your first choice is just an experiment,” Sanu told the pair she’d throupled with. “It’s not really about making a deep connection, it’s about, ‘Let’s try all different kinds of people out and see how it … affects our relationship’. It’s not about integrating another person into it, it’s about, ‘We’re going to use this person to figure out if polyamory is for us’, and that just feels really dehumanising … like just an object for you guys to experiment with.”

Luckily for Brittne and Sean, who were on the receiving end of Sanu’s feelings, Couple to Throuple believes in a solid return policy on all their singles. Every other night, the show wheels out the remaining unmatched souls and gives couples the chance to exchange their third for someone shiny, new and more willing to put up with their issues.

Sanu wasn’t the only one returned to the shelf in the third episode’s “Stay or Swap Ceremony”. Spoiler alert: alongside Sanu was a young woman named Becca, traded in by the happily married Lauren and Dylan. After an intimate first night together, Becca had begun to suspect that Dylan was less interested in polyamory than he was in wish-fulfilment. “Dylan is not here for the right reasons, he just wants two hot women on his arms, but that’s not sexy, there’s nothing cute about that, it’s just ugh.” Sadly for him and Lauren, the next woman they tried wouldn’t put out so she had to go too.