While you might recognize Shan Boodram from hosting empowerment-driven workshops during the past five seasons of Netflix’s “Too Hot to Handle,” the intimacy expert is turning her attention to another experimental relationship show by hosting the Roku series “The Marriage Pact.”
The show, which premieres Friday on The Roku Channel, centers on five duos who made the sacred promise to marry each other if they are still single by a certain age. Now, the couples have just three weeks to decide if they will fulfill their commitment or break their pact.
For Boodram, who also hosts the podcast “Lovers and Friends,” her various projects surrounding sex, love and relationships made her equipped to host the Roku show with “seriousness and care.”
“This is a really sensitive, vulnerable topic — there’s a lot of fear, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of high emotions surrounding it,” Boodram told TheWrap. “Knowing that I had that experience… [on “Too Hot to Handle”] definitely gave the producers of “The Marriage Pact” confidence that I was up for this challenge, and that I would treat all of the guests on the show… with respect [and] kindness, but also to push them to hold their feet to the fire and to hold them accountable.”
Boodram knew “a little bit of that tough love is necessary” for couples in marriage pacts, as those entering into these serious yet seemingly intangible promises might display self-sabotaging behaviors, or could even be afraid of commitment.
“Having a stern but loving voice is definitely what the show called for,” Boodram said. “And I think that I was the perfect person for that calling.”
Despite her time on juicy reality dating shows like “Too Hot to Handle,” Boodram noted that the Roku series takes things up a notch by involving real couples embarking on a 21-day journey before deciding if they should really tie the knot or break off their promise forever.
“No shade to other shows because I’ve been a part of them too but, oftentimes, these are just good-looking people, who get an opportunity to go on these experiences and [and are] like ‘yeah, why not?’” Boodram said. “But this is not a ‘why not’ show. These are people who have genuine history, and they have a real relationship at stake — some of them have kids — so you have to be mindful of all of that. We’re not just making TV, we’re making lives — or in some cases breaking apart lives.”
For Boodram, marriage pacts — whether they were made in the school yard or in college — point to a silent trend when it comes to intimacy: slow love. Whereas prior generations cemented their commitment first before learning the ins and outs of their partner, nowadays couples learn “as much as you possibly can about the person and the dating landscape” before making a commitment.
“Marriage pacts are really helpful because it takes couples like that, who can get in their own way, or people who, in general, are ready to deprioritize passion to actually say, ‘Hey, what does a good life with a good partner look like?’ ” Boodram said. “I think there’s a lot more people in our general everyday society that could benefit from having [marriage pacts].”
With couples entering the show as longtime friends, exes or flings, boundaries related to intimacy were a recurring theme Boodram saw in the first part of the series, as each duo began sharing a room — and a bed — together.
“These are people who get set in their ways and have a commitment, and they have been friends a certain way for so many years, so it was definitely a challenge to get a lot of them to cross the physical barrier,” Boodram said. “You would think that [couples would say] ‘we’re going to go from friends to lovers and give this thing a try,’ that day one you’d make out just to see if the chemistry was there — that was not the story for many of the people involved.”
As Boodram connected with the pairs and helped them unpack these issues, she wasn’t shy to remind them why they had joined the experience in the first place.
“That took that balance of understanding the sensitivity of their relationship, while also being the person who reminded them, ‘look, you said you wanted to be here to try this thing for real, so you’re either going to get in the water, or you’re going to continue to stand outside and just look at it, and if you are, why’d you fly all the way here?’” Boodram said. “But, obviously, when you’re so closely tied to somebody, the fear that it’s not there [and] that you have to say goodbye is just more than what many of us can empathize with.”
Ultimately, as the couples found their way closer together — or apart — within the 21-day experience, Boodram credited the duos for finding the right path for themselves.
“I may facilitate the conversation and ask the questions, but the most meaningful discussions came from the couples going through the exact same thing at the exact same time and the bond that they shared,” Boodram said. “They really did push each other and hold each other accountable. I just held space for them to do that.”
“The Marriage Pact” is now streaming on The Roku Channel.
