Great TV you watch & Great TV you don't!!

Disappointment in abundance last night as C4’s Come Dine with Me hit Exeter for it’s weekly competition, and I had the acute realisation that if I had bothered to apply I could so easily have walked away with £1000.  The general level of cooking and hosting was dire, and as can only be expected the production team selected a combination of people that could only enhance the stereotype of Devon people.  There was an eccentric guy who loved to hunt, a cockney party girl(?), a drama student who “acted” her way through and an older guy who liked to talk about himself a lot…the main reason I would not want to be on Come Dine, as I would hate to have a bunch of up-themselves strangers in my house assessing my dinner party skills.  However, I would like to point out that my skills (in my own humble opinion) are far superior to those demonstrated last night;  I cook a better three course dinner than any of those shown on a normal Thursday night dinner club, in which four friends and I take in turns to demonstrate our culinary skills.  I love being the hostess, and would cook every week if I was allowed, but that’s not the rule.  And I digress…last night the hosts served up (amongst other things)  a roast dinner with Bisto gravy followed by a pudding accompanied by TINNED custard, which the cook insisted she made from scratch using not the yolks of the eggs, but the whites!  It was clearly evident that she was fibbing!  There was rabbit curry followed by venison and lamb curry, and a Thai night, where host and guest ‘debated’ who had the most rounded knowledge of thai food; frankly I couldn’t care less.  All I can think is that next time they are touting for people to apply for the show I should seriously consider how much I want an easy grand!!

Until next time…

XOXOXO

So following the events of a certain Royal wedding last week I feel it is only right that I pay a small homage to William and Catherine’s special day…

First I must make special mention to the dress, which luckily turned out to have been designed by The House of McQueen; lucky for me as I had told several people prior to the wedding that it definitely was being designed by them, even though it had not been confirmed.  It was a beauty of a dress; elegantly understated and completely befitting for the future queen.  All the men that I know would probably appreciate a special mention of Pippa’s dress, which just passed the bar as appropriate maid of honour wear.

With regards to the TV coverage I opted for the BBC, as did approximately three quarters of the viewers in the UK.  Not bad to be fair, and I’m sure that ITV (or even E!) could not have done a better job.  I was pleased to note that there was no commentary throughout the ceremony, which would have ruined the whole thing.  The service was lovely, and James Middleton did himself and his sister proud with his reading…can you imagine how nervous he would have been?

However, it was the small, personal touches that made this wedding special, whispered exchanges between the couple, and the piece de resistance was the Harry decorated Aston Martin in which William himself drove his bride back to Clarence House.  It was definitely a day to be remembered, and watching it with my mum, sister and nieces made it special.  I still believe that my invitation was lost in the post…oh well, there’s always Harrys!

This week I thought I would address things slightly differently; partly because not much new is happening in my TV world.

As we all know, one of my current favourite shows, The Biggest Loser, has an American counterpart which I often compare to our version as being more dynamic, more fast-paced, and just generally more exciting.  This week saw the start of the American version of Tool Academy, another of my current guilty pleasures.  Obviously because of this I decided to tune in and compare to our version.  Tellingly, the series currently running is Tool Academy 3, meaning, as with The Biggest Loser, that if U.S TV production companies did not come up with these programmes we would never get anything slightly comparable here!  However, we often water down the ideas, meaning we end up with a slightly vapid version of the original.

Take The Biggest Loser for example…our version was first broadcast on Living (channel) for two series several years ago, then disappeared from the air for several years before being resurrected by ITV first as a daytime show, and currently in a prime time position.  It’s just not quite the same as the original U.S show though.  The same format is followed, currently pairs of family/friends/strangers start the show, then halfway through the remaining contestants are split into two teams.  However, as everything is bigger and (often) better in the U.S there are always a lot more teams (this season they started with 16 couples compared to our starting line up of 8), and a lot more twists as the show proceeds…this season on BL USA two teams were ‘sent home’ on day one, but unknown to the others they return after 30 days, with the couple who lose the most weight returning to the show.  Because the series run is longer it makes it possible to pull stunts like this; our show runs for eight weeks and to bring someone back halfway through this time would not really be feasible.  Temptations are bigger, prizes are bigger, and generally the contestants are bigger, with several starting at around half a ton this time around!  Also, the trainers are more willing to ‘break’ their contestants with hard work and humiliation.  Don’t get me wrong, I love our version of the show, but when another, better version of it is also showing (on a different channel) it takes a little of the magic away!

It really should have been obvious to me that there would have been an American version of Tool Academy, especially considering that the insult ‘tool’ is an American put-down.  And this week it appeared.  Following the precedent this too is a more humiliating version of our show, on a slightly grander scale and with more couples.  I was pleasantly surprised to note that the tools in this version were not all men, as in our show, but a couple of women were included as the bad person which was refreshing.  Also the humiliation piled upon the patient, doting partner came thick and fast, with virtually every tool admitting to infidelities in pre-recorded interviews shown in front of the whole group as part of the first group therapy session, resulting in many partners walking out-stupidly they decided to come back and continue.  Our poor guys at least had a couple of weeks before the videos of them kissing girls in strip club toilets were shown to the group, resulting in the obvious disgust of their other halves!  Getting it all out with extra drama is what the Americans do best, and I like it this way, although I also stand by our slightly mediocre versions!

Hells Kitchen USA is a prime example of a U.S network taking one of our concepts and making it work; whilst HK only ran for a couple of series over here with Gordan Ramsey at the helm, it is going strong in the U.S .  Keeping the concept consistent has ensured that you know exactly what you are getting, and using real people is definitely better than the introduction of celebrities to our version.  Add Gordan to the mix and you can be sure off passion and arrogance in the kitchen; further to this add fourteen chefs of varying experience (generally only a couple of them are actually any good) who all think they will win it and the kitchen ends up full of egotistical Americans who never fail to annoy, but that is the whole enjoyment of watching.

It proves, I think, that during the journey from one continent to another something gets lost, even when the same format is being followed.  However, when travelling in the opposite direction that doesn’t always happen; in fact sometimes our show gets improved!

Tomorrow sees the introduction of a new country to the mix (Australia already has Masterchef and Biggest Loser – the latter definitely more in line with the U.S than us) as Masterchef New Zealand starts on Watch.  The adverts for this suggest it will follow the Australian format, as do the ads for our version of the show, which starts on February 16th.  It will be interesting to see if we ruin this concept, as I actually prefer the way they did it to our old style show…we’ll just have to wait and see.  You know that I’ll have something to say about it though!

Until next time…

XOXOXO

It’s been another highly sociable week for me, meaning that my favourite pastime of watching TV as had to take a bit of a back seat.  However, there were still a couple of highlights in my viewing calendar.

The first of these has to be Channel 4’s Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.  Inspired by last years Cutting Edge documentary on the same subject this show expands a one-off onto a series covering not only weddings, but children receiving Holy Communion, and on to funerals; the three major life events in travelling families.  I am intrigued by the Gypsy lifestyle; persecuted for centuries their nomadic lifestyle is becoming more and more sedentary, and they segregate themselves from mainstream society so we don’t know much about them, apart from the snippets we get from programmes such as this.  The strict code of morality that they follow is confused by the way the young girls dress (barely there hooker probably describes it best!) and therefore society’s view of them is most probably skewed.  I love looking through the window into their world of weddings and celebration…the five stone (in weight) Swarovski encrusted wedding dresses, and this weeks particular favourite, the “marker pink” bridesmaid dresses (for marker think highlighter).  The girls see it as a mark of honour to have scars on their hips from the weight of their skirts, and each wants to outdo the bride that went before them.  I’m looking forward to further insights this week.

Secondly, rising in the ranks of becoming possibly my favourite reality trash show, is Tool Academy, where this week the tools had to take a lie detector test as a way of proving that their partners were right to have trust in them.  The twist to this was that it was actually a fake lie detector test, with the girls setting the questions and deciding if they thought their men were telling the truth or not.  Tellingly, more than one tool was unwilling to even sit down and take the test, clearly worried that they would be proved as liars (one of these was the tool caught in the toilet of a club with a girl last week).  Temper Tool finally lost it at this challenge, and after going just a little bit mental made his girlfriend pack up her stuff and leave the academy behind.  The “fun” challenge involved the girls dressing up as grannies and driving a mobility scooter round a course, whilst blindfolded, with their hapless men to guide them.  Each time they made a mistake the men got an electric shock, so it surprised me that they didn’t try to ignore the instructions and make more mistakes…I would have wanted to cause pain!

So what for Saturdays viewing…as it’s been a busy week I am chilling today, organising some paperwork whilst, predictably, watching the TV.  I have decided to revisit The Neverending Story, currently on ITV2.  Now, I know that it is a family fantasy film, but I am not ashamed to admit that I have not attempted to watch the film since I had to leave the cinema halfway though because I was scared (please bear in mind in was 1984, and that I was only 7 years old…and that my sister had already left).  I’m currently about half way though, and it’s no longer scary, just a nice film to zone out to for a little while.

Tonight, I’m going to give Take Me Out a chance; I have only heard good things about it from those who watch, so one attempt in order to decide for myself should be made.  Another point of interest is The Return of ‘Ello ‘Ello on BBC2 tonight, maybe today will become all about reminiscing!  Apart from that very little is tempting me, but will wait and see what happens.

Until next time…

XOXOXO