Yet another cowboy builder reality prog has started on BBC. A spin-off from the once respected, now woeful,'Watchdog' it's presented by the lightweight Chris Hollins (son of Chelsea's John). Not exactly your hard hitting investigator, but he never actually gets invoved at the sharp end of things and just sticks to the voice-over. The team 'on the road' is headed by Chris's resident expert on all things to do with building and plumbing, Roger. Roger we are told can spot a dodgy drain repair from miles away. The twist in this prog. is that as well as finding cowboys, Roger pretends to be one himself and goes around doing bodge jobs and charging way over the odds for them. What a jolly wheeze! As if there aren't enough genuine rip offs for them to sort out. They go back later in the day to the house he's 'done' to tell the house owner how it was only pretend and he's been ripped off. Rogere, the show's producer and the crew all think it's hilarious and stand there laughing at him whilst the poor householder looks embassed and numb about it all. This has shades of Jeremy Beadle about it, but I don't remember JB actually humiliating people like this lot do! The Watchdog jokers on the 'bike are bad enough but these are even worse.
My opinion is not at all influenced by the fact that 30 years ago, the same Roger condemned our central heating boiler/system, and said he'd fit a new one for us. We declined his offer and it lasted another 20 years. Cowboys, look closer to home BBC!
Comments
So much trash on these days. The original "Cowboy Builders" programme is pretty farcical - hard man Dom spends a couple of days trying to catch up with the offending "cowboy", giving the impression that he's going to either batter him senseless or make sure he gets banged up for 15 years, then he finally gets there and the builder just gets a stern talking to! Pathetic!
The X-Factor's pretty tedious - so much hype and tension, as we wait to discover who will be the most rapidly forgotten "celebrity" of 2012.
Most programmes on TV annoy me. If I start naming them though some clever dick will come on and say "Use the on/off button you muppet". I don't watch much TV but as I work in a very big, busy office and have a large circle of friends and a large family I am aware of a lot of TV shows although I don't watch them. They still annoy me.
X-Factor
BGT
Piers Morgan's chat show
The new Jonathon Ross show on ITV
Eastenders
Shameless
Waterloo Road
Question Time (Nowdays just dumbed down so much)
Oh I could go on and on all day......
Hmm, I'd rather have The Football League Show and the extra time, than not.
The various talent shows that involve either celebrities dancing or members of the public singing cover versions just baffle me. Not sure I hate them though. I've got hundreds of channels so I watch something else or switch it off. It keeps idiots gawping.
Anything under the subject heading 'reality show' and anything involveing famous people telling the public how to do non-fame related activities (ie DIY shows, house buying programmes etc).
Both of which are cheap to produce and therefore sadly make up 90% of all UK tv shows.
Some good stuff on though. The new series of Curb is excellent. New series of The Thick of It is coming soon, that is a fantastic show.
I enjoy Only Connect and Uni Challenge. Also lots of stuff on BBC 3 and 4 especially the old music stuff. Good Pink Floyd and OGWT stuff lately.
The fact is, going in with a BBC camera gives you advantages that most people will never have and therefore telling us how easy it is to negotiate a great deal is stupid.
And most of the house prices are ten years old.
Glad to hear a new thick of it is coming.
On a related subject did anyone see that documentary on crying last night? My missus reckons I have a soulmate in Jo Brand of all people! She was tearing shreds off the wimps and attention seekers who burst into tears on most of our tv programmes but especially the talent and reality shows.
Rule no 1 of any of those shows should be that if you cry...you are ejected from the show immediately.
In short then, any programme where the participants, especially if they are blokes, cry.
A bit girly but love the new Sally Lindsay comedy on Sky 1 called Mount Pleasant. Over acting, cheesy predictable lines and exaggerated characters but it makes me chuckle. I doubt any men watch it though.
I dont really have a list off the top of my head of what programmes I hate. Have a long list of ones I have to sky plus to watch when I have time - tons of guilty pleasures and ones I am only allowed to watch when husband is out. these programmes would probably make up his list of programmes he hates. :-)
oh yeah, good point rizzo - like on homes under the hammer etc - 'To keep you interested we'll show you this great thing then do something else and then we'll tell you what happens later in the show but not only that, we'll also show clips of what we did in the first half of the show in case you only just turned on making the first half an hour of this show totally pointless'
Also this new way of presenting programmes that have adverts by showing 'whats coming up in part 2' 'what happened in part 1' what will happen in part 3' what happened in part 2 after you've watched it' 'what happened last week' and 'what will happen next week'
how about you film more footage and not spend 15 mins doing recaps and previews after every ad break.
Embarrassing Bodies. How any one can watch that is beyond me.
Have to agree with BA about crying, especially in the X factor. Everyone seems to cry at the drop of a hat, judges, contestants, audience.
Jerry Spinger.....and there's an English fella, who's name escapes me, who does a pretty similar show.
All credit to them though for having spotted a way of making a fortune out of absolute shyte!