KEY POINTS:
Just when you thought make-over shows couldn't get any more ridiculous, along comes Renovate My Family - an almost irresistible name for a telly show.
Given the chance, who wouldn't have their family renovated?
Tonight's family seem to like each other. They are a recently merged family of
mom, dad, and seven kids and live in a shack in California. I didn't know they had shacks in California, but they do. Mom and Dad sleep in the lounge, on an air bed, which is not very romantic but probably wise given the kid count.
The wreckers are brought in to take to the shack as neighbours and friends chant, "Tear it down! Tear it down!"
The host is Jay McGraw, the son of Dr Phil, who turns up next week to carry out some trademark hectoring counselling.
McGraw has his own style: part cheerleader, part psychologist. Letting him inside your head would be like letting in those wreckers with sledgehammers and bulldozers.
Like all of these make-over shows - the appalling Trinny and Susannah lead the ghastly field - there is a bullying expectation that you have to help yourself to deserve to be helped (and humiliated) on the telly.
This is the modern, televised version of noblesse oblige. The McGraws, the Trinnys and Susannahs get to feel good and you get to tug your forelock and say how grateful you are. And if you could just manage a tear for the camera to show your appreciation, that would prove you are truly deserving.
I don't know how the families are chosen for renovation. The nice-but-
dull family will get a flash new house at the end of tonight's show. For nothing. That is if you regard as nothing having your horrible mouldy carpet and all of your secrets aired. And you will pay of course, with all that forelock-tugging.
Renovate My Family doesn't just stop at the house. The family is given a make-over, too. There's a cooking slot, a sort of mini Iron Chef: two hours to cook a four-course gourmet meal. "The family was having fun and bonding." No they weren't; they were having a food fight. And just in case the house renovation bit gets boring, the construction team is three blonde triplets who carry out construction (no, not really) in little, tight tops.
I sometimes pop in to have a horrified look at another family in which there are also three blondes who have already been renovated. They live in what is supposed to be a mansion but doesn't seem very grand, with an old coot called Hef. Or, as Holly, blonde girlfriend number one calls him, "Puffin Boo".
Girls of the Playboy Mansion is R18. I'm not sure why, exactly. Oh, you get to see the odd naked bit (but never Hef's; this is not a complaint.) But it's about as sexy as a dishcloth. It's become quite good though. I think Holly's up to something. When the other two blondes went away for the weekend she set about proving to Hef that "life doesn't stop when you only have one girlfriend". They had lots of fun together, poring over shots of naked women, which Hef seemed to find as exciting as ... a dishcloth.
When Bridget came back from a Halloween supply show, she gave Holly a plastic brain. "We're all just one big happy family," she miaowed. Isn't that sweet? That mansion could do with a visit from McGraw but perhaps he's already been there. He married a Playboy model.
