TV Monitor
Move over, VH1. There's a new guilty pleasure in town called The Learning Channel. Its friends call it TLC.
TLC first entered my life a few years ago when a friend introduced me to "A Wedding Story," a half-hour glimpse into a real-life couple's journey from engagement to honeymoon. I didn't much care for it. Though I liked the one where the nightclub-owning Italian groom got his eyebrows waxed just for the occasion, "A Wedding Story" was entirely too predictable. The couples always ended up getting, you know, married.
Oh, but TLC has so much more to offer, as I soon learned. "A Wedding Story" is but the tamest in a series of programs designed to devour time: "A Dating Story," "A Makeover Story" and, of course, "A Baby Story." "A Dating Story," where two hapless people are set up on a blind date by a scheming friend, is the most compelling of the bunch. Just sitting on the couch watching the couple struggle through dinner and whatever activity they've planned makes me nervous.
I'll never forget the episode where the man ordered chocolate fondue for dessert. He then proceeded to blindfold his date and feed her strawberries drizzled in chocolate. On a first date? On television? The greatest shock (and the show's absolute best part, episode after episode) came at the update at the end -- he never called her for a second date.
"A Makeover Story" is self-explanatory. Usually it's a married couple or best girlfriends who need a new look. "A Baby Story," however, despite its innocuous title, is perhaps the most chilling half-hour on television. Women: If you ever plan to have children, do not watch this show. Men: If you ever want to find a woman remotely attractive ever again, do not watch this show. Small screaming babies and large screaming women do not add up to a pleasant half-hour of programming.
So no one's perfect. What audience TLC may lose due to fainting, vomiting or sudden fits after a dose of "A Baby Story" is quickly revived with an infusion of the channel's newest and most cleverly titled program, "Trading Spaces." In this hour-long show, two couples who are also neighbors trade houses to redecorate a room over the space of two days.
|
Forget "Temptation Island." Emotions run high during the deceptively meek "Trading Spaces." Each couple gets an interior designer who is a regular on the show. Sometimes their, shall we say, "vision" of the neighbor's room clashes. It's the couples who do the grunt work, too; the designer tends to supervise and order them around. You wouldn't think that people could nearly come to blows over too-orange paint. You'd be surprised.
The brilliance of "Trading Spaces" is how it takes a rather mundane event and turns it into a high-octane emotional rollercoaster. Bob Vila, take note. A false sense of pressure drives the show, as the redecorating must take place within two days and under a budget of $1,000. (What happens if it's not finished in time and under budget? Nothing, apparently, but the tension still builds as the deadlines loom.)
And so I've become a TLC addict. Soon I know I'll be roped into "Junkyard Wars," which, I suppose, was conceived after the network heads realized all the housewives watching TLC have husbands. "Junkyard Wars" pits two crack teams against each other as they race to build submarines, explosives, catapults and other manly objects out of piles of rubbish. "Finally, some good trash on television," the commercial boasts. Sounds good enough for me.
Where most reality shows exploit sex, audacity and greed, TLC is a refreshing alternative. Its reality programming (which, I might add, was in place long before anyone had ever heard of being voted off the island) simply tests man's ingenuity. Or, in the case of "A Dating Story," man's ability to disguise how thoroughly embarrassed he is for a good length of time.
Other cable networks are catching on, too. While in the midst of writing a paper on Luis de G¢ngora's "Soneto CLXVI," I found myself in dire need of a TLC fix. Alas, "A Baby Story" was on. In desperation I turned to The Travel Channel.
It seems The Travel Channel has taken a page out of TLC's book. I found myself watching "The World's Best Places to Propose." Five couples, five romantic cities. Five scheming men who told their five gullible girlfriends they were going to be taped for a television show about romantic getaways. Five shocked, weepy women accepting their beloveds' proposals. One Spanish literary analysis left by the wayside.
So the next time you find yourself torn between "Survivor" and "Friends," take a meander down the cable way. You may never turn back.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
