Overview
A group of struggling married couples enlists the help of counselors Ilze and Paul to rekindle the flame that once fueled their relationships.
Seasons
- Status
- Returning Series
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 1 episode
Reviews
4 min readThe Couples’ Retreat We Didn’t Ask For (But Maybe Needed)
I’ll admit it: I went into Saving Our Marriage expecting a kind of cinematic couples therapy session—something earnest, slightly awkward, and ultimately forgettable. What I got instead was something far more unsettling. latestnetflix.com's view is that Not because it’s a bad show (though it’s not exactly good), but because it lays bare the quiet desperation of modern love with a bluntness that feels almost accidental.
Like eavesdropping on a conversation you weren’t meant to hear.
The premise is simple: four couples, all teetering on the edge of separation, check into a weekend retreat led by therapists Ilze and Paul, who promise to "rekindle the flame." That’s it. No twist, no murder mystery, no hidden cult.
Just eight people sitting in a room, talking about their feelings. And yet, within the first twenty minutes, I found myself leaning forward—not because the dialogue was sharp or the performances revelatory, but because the show had stumbled into something rare: the boring truth of long-term relationships.
Take the opening scene, where one of the husbands—let’s call him Mark—admits to his wife that he’s been lying about his porn habits. Not the lie itself, but the way he delivers it: with the exhaustion of a man who’s said this exact thing a hundred times before. There’s no grand revelation, no explosive fight.
Just a slow exhale, like he’s finally putting down a weight he’s been carrying for years. The camera lingers on his face, not for dramatic effect, but because there’s nothing else to cut to. This is the show’s defining choice: it refuses to look away.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe database thinks this is Korean
TMDB still files Saving Our Marriage as a scripted Korean series with no air date. The overview is the English Netflix logline. Original language, Korean. Type, Scripted. Networks, a dash. Season 1 lists one episode, then dates episode 13 to August 11, 2023. That date is the Netflix add, not a Johannesburg premiere. latestnetflix.com's view is that the show behind the page is the South African SABC3 coaching series with Ilze Alberts and Paul Nyamuda.
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SABC3 got there first, then slipped the date.
Expresso's May 2018 segment sold a Tuesday, July 10 launch. TVSA's show page and its "New on TV today" post put the first night on Wednesday, August 15, 2018, at 19:30. A SABC3 YouTube intro posted five days later told viewers to catch Ilze on Thursdays. The slot moved. A commenter named Tashi wrote the quiet part. Colleagues would see "dirty laundry." Then the punchline. "Alternatively no-one they know will see them because it's on SABC3." SABC3 kept the series through March 31, 2021. SABC2 reran it from August 2019 into May 2022. , , ,
Connect TV made it. Executive producers Clifford Elk and Basetsana Kumalo. Kumalo is Miss South Africa, the Top Billing force, and Connect TV's CEO. She and Romeo Kumalo are the country's default golden couple. They marked 25 years of marriage in December 2025. The woman producing a show about collapsing unions has the marriage the papers treat as proof it can work. Series producer Petronella Tasara. Director Thulani "Fish" Masuku. ,
Weekend retreat, weekday hangover.
The format is blunt. Cameras in the houses Monday to Thursday. Friday the couples move into a retreat for counseling and tasks. SABC International Sales still sells it as five couples. Season 2's TVSA page names four. Paul and Maria, Mahlodi and Asanda, Vivian and Gudani, Thabang and Nonhlanhla. Ilze is a psychologist and published author. On Expresso she talked about 30 years in the chair, her own divorce, a husband who died, and a hybrid family. Paul is an organizational psychologist, a pastor, and the face of Marriage Coach. Ilze's own January 2021 promo said the four couples were "now thriving." That is her line, on her channel. The same promo lets a husband deny a drinking problem, a wife say sex is being withheld, and someone threaten to "take it outside." , , ,
Netflix later packaged 13 episodes as a 2018 TV-MA reality title, English audio, South African genre tags. Bestflix logged the Polish catalog add on August 11, 2023, which is why TMDB's last episode wears that date. The fights were already two seasons old. The listing just finally crossed an ocean. , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.