Bless These Houses
‘WITH Big Brother approaching its screaming climax, TV types are looking around to replicate that housebound formula.
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| Patron saint of husbands |
Filming people in a house is cheap TV. No need for expensive scenes, outside broadcasts and complex logistics. Just turn up and hit the record button on the cameras.
Add to this the lure of unpaid talent, and its easy to see why Big Brother has been such a hit the world over.
And why a show like Transformed: Hopeless Husbands ever gets made.
The ITV show centres on three husbands who are driving their wives crazy. Im exhausted, overworked, underpaid, pissed off, angry and irate, says one. And no its not because theres never anything decent on the telly; its because her man is a pig.
So the men, David, Kam and John, are despatched to a boot camp for reconditioning. There, they are whipped into shape by the ubiquitous Marine, a mentalist and a woman called Kate.
You half expected that as the boys lay their heads on their pillows, a tape was triggered and hypnopaediac messages like Let her watch Corrie, or else youll be sorry and A woman to cherish, likes burgers with relish were burnt into their subconscious.
It is all pretty unedifying stuff. And watching ex-squaddie John get in tune with his feminine side as he embraced aerobics, salsa dancing and stroked a horse called Mopsie fed our desire to watch a stupid man doing stupid things stupidly.
And here was the thing. While we wondered why the women bothered with their men at all and didnt use the time apart to find a new one, pack up and leave or change the locks, it was hard to work out why the men were there.
These men were so bad, so terrible, so awful that they had somehow agreed to appear before a nation to show just how idle and boneheaded they are.
And the answer was obvious. In entering the house they could get way from their wives, women who saw TV as a chance to sort their lives out, to give them a beginning, a middle and an end, with ad breaks to go to the toilet and credits.
The next move is to film them. And they can all get together in one house, itll keep the costs down. A womans refuge should do it. We havent had a reality TV show about that for too long…’
Posted: 9th, August 2005 | In: Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
