ITV

Trial By Kyle: The Jeremy Kyle Show

I've spent a couple of mornings this week watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. If you don't have the luxury of being around during daytime TV hours, you might not have seen it, but you'll almost certainly have heard of Kyle and his show.

It's a variation on the Jerry Springer formula. And why not, Springer's show was a huge success - you bring on people from the lowest echelons of society and let them rip into each other. The topics are usual fodder - DNA tests, lie detector tests. Drug addiction, boozing, bad parenting, crime, men who try to sleep with every female in a given family. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the down-and-outs and council house dwelling masses were no better than animals.

That's the thing about the Kyle show. There always seems to be a ready supply of scoundrels and scumbags for Jeremy to point his finger of justice at. Physically, these people are in bad shape - buckled teeth, cross eyed, often seriously obese. I say this, because the physical is surely some indication of their mental condition - when they come out on the stage shouting insults at each other, pointing fingers and snarling.

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by Gerard McGarry on Wed, 3 March 10 1 Comment

ITV's Take Me Out - what a meat market!

It's only been seven or so years since ITV gave Blind Date the chop, but they've revived the Saturday night dating show format with Take Me Out.

But dating has come a long way since Cilla Black was unsubtly hinting about having to buy new hats to attend her contestants' weddings. Fronted by sometimes-funny Paddy McGuinness, Take Me Out has a far more mass market approach to pairing its love-starved contestants up.

30 (yes, thirty) women are assembled for each show, lined up on stage behind podiums that light up. They use these lights to indicate whether they're interested in the 'eligible bachelor' who's brought before them. Example: a ginger guy wearing a striped sweater and tartan trousers (who could've been on the original Blind Date) is brought out, and instantly almost every one of the thirty lights is extinguished.

The guy is asked some questions and with each answer, the remaining girls choose to stay in the game or to withdraw. If they withdraw, they switch off their light. At the end, the bachelor chooses between the two remaining contestants and they couple go on a date.

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by Gerard McGarry on Sat, 23 January 10 1 Comment