TV Review: The Great American Roadtrip

RUNNING ON EMPTY: The Great American Roadtrip makes The Amazing Race look like Shakespeare. Photo / Supplied

A high five to you my friend if you haven't said "There's nothing on TV" at least once in the past few weeks when contemplating the idiot's lantern.

I love television. I even love rubbish television, so I'm not that hard to please when it comes to finding something to watch.

Crazily, I even gave Prime's The Block a rave review (although that was just for its "queen-bitch-from-hell" factor). But even with my embarrassingly low standards, there are lean pickings these days.

You know how it is. You finally get the kids to bed and sit down and feel like watching something really satisfying, entertaining, local, clever or just relaxing and escapist in some way that you can't quite define but know when you see it.

Some shows that have done it for me this year were This is Not Your Life, Outrageous Fortune, New Zealand's Next Top Model, Modern Family, Mad Men and Glee.

But what's on offer in the current schedule? Yes, there's Glee. But a typical night's line-up on mainstream television seems to involve at least one B-grade restaurant reality show, a bad Australian version of a reality TV show, a freak-of-the-week documentary (The Man With Half A Body), something with children behaving badly, and a straight-to-DVD movie.

Other treats include obscure UK game shows (The Cube), obscure UK chat shows (The Graham Norton Show) and various high-concept oddities that must have seemed a good idea in the programmer's boardroom - for example, William Shatner investigating spooky paranormal stuff and cricketer Shane Warne hosting a chat show.

Are TV bosses stockpiling all the good stuff for next year? Or are they just resting on their laurels because they think they are doing well enough already serving up dross?

This week TV2 put out a press release celebrating a milestone, having the highest ratings among 18 to 39-year-old viewers for 100 weeks in a row. Programmers certainly must be feeling pretty pleased with themselves to send out The Great American Road Trip - which tanked in the US - as one of their offerings on TV2 next week.

In the genre of shrieking American families running places very fast, The Great American Roadtrip makes The Amazing Race look like Shakespeare.

The premise is that seven American families drive down Route 66 in huge camper vans. That's pretty much all you need to know. The families fulfil every ghastly stereotype you could dredge up about Americans.

"I don't think we're hard-core rednecks. We love George Bush," say the country family from Alabama as they show off their guns.

"How big is my engagement ring, honey? Seven carats?" say the posh Katzenberg family from Connecticut.

Comedian Reno Collier, who hosts the show, is obviously just as out of touch with reality. "It was a great group as far as it's not a bunch of weirdos ... it's not, like, just out-of-control character people, it's real families."

Gulp. Even worse, he may be right.

Of course, we are all about to see a lot of our real families over Christmas, so perhaps when we sit down and relax in front of the television we just want to see something that is not so real, but just real entertaining.

Are you listening, programmers?

*The Great American Roadtrip debuts on TV2, Tuesday at 7.30pm.