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Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Ty Pennington
  • Posted at 10:52am
  • 05 September 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 3 comments

If you're the kind of person who giggles all the way through The Elephant Man and chucks popcorn at the screen at the climax of Brief Encounter, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will probably have you clutching at the furniture in mirth, you heartless brute.

For those unfamiliar with the premise, a family that has encountered some kind of severe hardship – be it multiple deaths, chronic illness or financial catastrophe – are "surprised" early one morning by a small team of builders and designers, who send them on a week-long holiday while they demolish their house and build a massive, high-spec replacement in its place. With the residents' permission, obviously.

It's difficult not to be moved by the videotape of the family's woes. The gratuitous camera shots of the designers watching said footage and blubbing their eyes out, however, does over-egg the pudding. Indeed, on occasions the pudding is in danger of collapsing under the sheer weight of egg. One designer, Tanya McQueen, only has to see a child graze its knee before she starts dabbing at her eyeliner with a manicured finger.

On Monday's show on UKTV Style, Dennis and Kim Collins – who selflessly adopted Kim's nieces and nephews when their parents died in a car accident – guided Ty, the main presenter, around their dilapidated home. As they brushed past the door frame, it fell off. And when they walked into the bedroom, water was seeping under the skirting board.

Kim began to well up, clearly embarrassed at her humble abode – so it was time for Ty to take it to the bridge. "Tell me," he said gently, "about the day you found out about the car accident." Gentle piano music fades in, and we reach for the box of man-sized tissues. We know that the show is designed to emotionally manipulate us – but hey, it's OK to get weepy about building work. Isn't it?

Once the family are on holiday it's time to stop crying, and start screaming like an imbecile through a megaphone. "Let's demolish this sucker!" yells Ty. Crowds of willing volunteers in hard hats appear over the horizon, whooping and punching the air, and then - well, they build a magnificent house in just seven days.

These people are seriously driven. They look like they're on a cocktail of protein shakes, espressos and motivational seminars. At one point, Ty screams "We're moving in furniture!" to his totally psyched colleagues, and is met with the kind of animated frenzy you see when crucial late goals are scored in the Uefa Cup final.

But it's soon back to the handkerchiefs. The family return to their new home, and it's like Christmas, birthdays, new year and a lottery win rolled into one. Everyone cheers, sobs and slumps against tasteful wallpaper in disbelief.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is such a preposterously American programme, I'm amazed to hear that a British version is in development. I can only imagine that it ends each week with a bloke from the council turning up with a clipboard and patiently explaining that no-one applied for the relevant planning permission.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is on weekdays at 10:00pm on UKTV Style (Sky 256, Virgin 265, Freeview 26).

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  • Posted on 21 September 2007
  • at 11:52am
  • by MazY

I'm struggling to imagine how the UK version will capture the same mindless and over-zealous whooping at the start of a build. It's just not the British way is it?

Such things would surely be interrupted by a Health and Safety Officer, advising that such an action must meet the guidelines, as laid out in EEC Directive 43843:12C, and only with the appropriate ear-defenders being worn.

Once the above has been met, and all appropriate local-council forms are signed, I still struggle to imagine anything more enthusiastic than a "Right, 'spose we better get started then...." echoing out from behind a wall of flasks and a large cloud of steam bellowing into the damp morning air.

  • Posted on 06 September 2007
  • at 5:01pm
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT

Good point, Mr JP.

Anneka, of course, is currently stuck in a kitchen with Marco Pierre-White for what promises to be an eternity. She must be raring to slip on a one-piece boiler suit and run screaming around the countryside. I know I am.

  • Posted on 06 September 2007
  • at 3:52pm
  • by dickoon

See, to me it's just an arcade version of Challenge Anneka, except that Anneka (with Ty Pennington providing a challenging performance in the role of Anneka Rice) has already got the "assemble a team" power-up, the "army of a couple of hundred builders" power-up, the "pre-fabricated house" power-up, the "let's get Tony Hawk / Mr. T / Some Famous Country Singer to make a cameo appearance" power-up and has the Practically Infinite Cash So Long As It All Gets Spent At This Particular Chain cheat mode on. Accordingly this tends to make the game a bit easier, which is why he hardly ever runs out of time. He may have infinite lives as well.

jiggery_pokery

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