SEATTLE — Surrounding The Seattle Times newsroom stand luxury towers of glass and intrigue, beckoning with amenities the average Seattleite can only dream of, like pools, dog-washing stations and even bedrooms with actual walls.

Who lives in these palatial estates, I wonder as I dodge a speeding Porsche or food-delivery driver who made his own parking space on the sidewalk.

Among its temporary residents, I learned recently, were semi-willing hostages (contestants) on a reality dating show.

Millions of viewers now know these 14 people as the cast of Season 20 of “Married at First Sight,” set in Seattle, whose finale aired Aug. 27. Its premise is simple: Seven couples are paired up by relationship experts, meet at the altar for the first time and get married. Then, they navigate the next two months to see if they can make this marriage thing work — or at the very least, not throw each other off their fancy balconies.

The show, now going on more than a decade-plus of seasons to varying degrees of relationship success, may seem extreme. But anyone who has dated in Seattle knows it’s rough out there, and the matchmakers say they’ll find someone who is just what they’re looking for in a partner. So why not try the ancient tradition of arranged marriage with a modern, made-for-TV spin? What could go wrong?

Oh, so many things.

We meet the Seattle singles, who are in their late 20s to late 40s, in the first episode. At first glance, they appear to be Fully Formed Humans, a refreshing turn from other dating shows of Future Influencers waiting for their viral moment so they can hawk skin care to the digital masses. Their jobs are all over the employment spectrum, from professional rugby player to college vice president. A good portion represent Seattle’s young tech wave: At least four work or have worked at Amazon, and others have had stints at Microsoft, Blue Origin, Meta and Oracle.

The show feels more ingrained in Seattle than “Love Is Blind,” the 2023 show that also wreaked havoc on Seattle singles. That show largely felt like it could have been filmed anywhere, except when the couples took a Lake Union boat ride or argued over whether to move to Portland (we’ll circle back to that). On “Married at First Sight,” specific landmarks in the Seattle area not named Pike Place Market are mentioned: Adam’s favorite activity — and point of contention in his marriage to Marissa — is riding his Jet Ski to play hours of pickleball in Mercer Island’s Luther Burbank Park. Mecca’s dad is a community activist and educator, and Michelle’s relative is a former Seattle School Board member. In our increasingly expensive city, money is talked about openly.

Nikki, the only woman in her 40s allowed on reality television save for the Real Housewives of Myriad Lands, tells the matchmaker she would prefer her husband earn at least $200,000. It’s an eyebrow-raising preference, but less so in a county where one in every 14 residents is a millionaire and you can throw a Frisbee and hit someone with stock options.

The matchmakers, new this season following the show’s move to Peacock, instead match Nikki with Shawn, the college vice president whose public salary is far less than that. She assumes he’s the wedding officiant when she sees him at the altar, and little improves from there. They admittedly have a lot in common: They’re both successful in their careers, enjoy corporate speak and absolutely hate their new spouse.

Throughout the 20 episodes, we see the couples go through the ebbs and flows of a new relationship with the added pressure that comes after you meet someone for the first time and also marry them. Mecca and BelleJolie struggle after Mecca says he thinks she’s more attracted to him than he is to her. Felipe can’t seem to grasp that his marriage to Tori would mean staying faithful to one person forever. Courteney and Nick, who has already been on two reality shows, never get a rhythm going in being open with each other.

The brightest spot comes from Michelle and Cameron, though they face the prospect of a long-distance relationship because Cameron lives in Portland, Oregon. Once again, the poor Seattle viewers have been salmoned, a take on “catfished” I used in my “Love Is Blind” recaps when the producers also bamboozled us into thinking everyone was from here. Maybe those L.A. and New York reality-show elites group Seattle and Portland together (fair), or maybe Seattle’s pool was already too small — Adam and Marissa realized at the altar that they had met previously at a bar. Either way, the salmoning needs to stop. Or, at the very least, import singles from Vancouver, British Columbia, for dramatic international romances and maybe a Tim Hortons sponsorship.

Come “Decision Day,” five of the seven couples remain. Courteney and Nick called it off first, followed by Devin and Caitlin, who couldn’t match each other’s communication styles. The five couples are supposed to decide if they want to stay married or get divorced, though public records suggest these marriages were never “real” — I wasn’t able to find any documentation of marriage applications or certificates.

Just two couples, Michelle and Cameron and Mecca and BelleJolie, stay “married.” By the reunion, only Michelle and Cameron are still together. They have an especially Seattle ending: Michelle was laid off from her tech job, which she says was a blessing in disguise because she could be with Cameron in Portland. She’ll soon join him in the Bay Area, where he has a new coaching position.

What can we learn about Seattle dating from “Married at First Sight”? With a 14% success rate, it doesn’t seem like much. Maybe we see that the love of your life is out there, maybe right in front of you.

Or maybe, just maybe, they might be in Portland.

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‘Married at First Sight’

All episodes of Season 20 are streaming on Peacock.

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