Private Thoughts Made Public

Here in the UK we have what is supposed to be one of the best broadcasting corporations in the world, the BBC. In its time the BBC has produced some of the most compelling dramas, documentaries and news reporting ever seen. It is funded by a licence fee – everyone who owns a television set has to pay £120 a year for a licence that allows them to watch the BBC. It’s the licence fee that allows the BBC to remain commercial-free, and you need one if your television set is capable of picking up the BBC’s signal, regardless of whether or not you actually watch it.
In recent years the BBC has been accused of “dumbing-down”, going for the lowest common denominator in the battle for ratings, and letting quality slide. The lineup is full of cookery shows, home makeover shows and quiz shows. If you switch on your tv set these days you can’t tell if you’re watching the BBC or some cheap tat cable channel.
This evening I watched a programme on BBC2 and I’m thinking of asking for my money back. It was called “Mechannibals” and the premise is that two families battle it out to build a contraption to achieve a particular goal. This is not exactly a completely new idea, shows like Scrapheap Challenge and The Great Egg Race have done similar things in the past – but the twist with this show is that they families have to use what they find in their own homes to make the contraptions. I bet some tv show commissioner was watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and when it came to the scene where Caractacus Potts came in to the living room and took out the back of the fireplace while Grandpa was reading the kids a story he thought “That’s a good idea for a show!”
This week they had to build a machine to destroy a garden shed. In a rare show of generosity, the garden sheds were provided by the show’s producers. The families set about making their shed-cushing-machines, cannibalising everything from washing machines, tumble dryers (a brand new one they’ve only had for two weeks in this case), the kitchen table and chairs, to the kids beds’, toys and bicycles. The winners get all their cannibalised items replaced with new ones, the losers get a toolbox. And they have to replace everything they’ve trashed on their own.
This is voyeuristic television at its worst. We are invited to watch as the men of the house take their wives and children’s belongings and rip them to pieces, just for an opportunity to appear in a tv programme. At various points in the “show” we were treated to seeing women and children reduced to tears as more and more of their possessions were broken up by the single-minded men. Here’s a sample of a conversation between one of the men and a teenage girl (I can’t remember now if the girl was his daughter or his niece):
Girl (on discovering that her bed had been taken to pieces): “Where am I going to sleep tonight?”
Man: “We’ll find somewhere”
Girl: “I’m not sleeping on the floor! And I’m not sleeping on the camping bed!”
Man: “There is another option.”
Girl: “What’s that?”
Man: “You could move out….”
At another point in the show the presenter had to run round to the side of the house to comfort the wife after she’s discovered that her pergola was being pulled apart to make a base for the crane (their idea was to winch the toilet high into the air and then drop it on the garden shed). I wouldn’t have wanted to be the presenter in this case. What could she have said? “Cheer up love, it’s only a game show. I know they’re wrecking your entire house, but hey, you get to be on TV!”
I remember a similar show where people had to nominate their friends and partners most annoying possessions to be destroyed – the friends and partners had to fight to keep their stuff. There were no prizes, you either got to keep your property or you didn’t. There was one show where a wife had nominated her husbands greenhouse. She hated the greenhouse because he spent more time in it than he spent with her. She was in her 50′s I think and he was in his 60′s or 70′s. The greenhouse was his pride and joy. I think you can guess where this is leading – he lost and the greenhouse was chopped to pieces in front of his eyes. The crowd roared and cheered and the poor bloke was reduced to tears – it was truly awful to watch. I’ve spent the last hour trying to find the name of this godawful show, but I’ve drawn a blank. It may have been Beat the Crusher, but the description for that show only mentions cars getting destroyed.
I can’t stand programmes like this. Even the “be a pop star” type of show, that seems to be so popular these days, I can’t bear any of them. Where’s the attraction in seeing someone else’s hopes crushed? Yet millions of people tune in every week to hear some poor sap do his (or her) best, thinking they’ve got what it takes to become rich and famous, only for Simon Cowell to tell them that they’re utter shite and they’d be better off under the wheels of a bus, or something. They burst into tears and go home (probably via the doctors for a shot of some anti-depressant) and the audience whoop and cheer.
And still we have to pay the television licence to watch.
Is this a good time to mention that my brother and sister-in-law will be on televison tomorrow night, as two of their biker friends (who just live round the corner from me, actually) are being featured on Wife Swap? Don’t miss it, it’ll be riveting, and not at all voyeuristic, oh no. Channel 4, Monday night, 9pm. Followed by Wife Swap – The Aftermath, E4, 10pm.