James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Television is that sacred place where you can suspend your IQ for an evening. I found, perhaps the most wholesome show to do this is actually a reality show: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. To my surprise, I've seen it twice within about a month.

The gist of it, is, a real-life family whose needs more space than they have in their house, sends a video to ABC to explain how their home needs a makeover. If the house is selected, a tv host named Ty Pennington and a team of telegenic interior decorators and architects come to their house, interview each member of the house about their interests, send them on vacation, and re-do their house in seven days. Then the family comes back, tears of joy flood the television screen, and everyone is happy. In the end, it's kind of an informercial for Sears, but who cares?

All well and good. I have no complaints with the show, per se.

But, they do not do an "extreme makeover" of the house. Not at all. Instead of, say, knocking down a wall, adding a cubby corner, or building an addition, what they do to these houses is completely demolish them and then build mansions in their place.

So I wonder if anyone can inform me about the original "Extreme Makeover" which had to do with women who thought they were unattractive. I thought that may have involved wardrobe and makeup changes, and maybe at the extreme, a nose or breast job. Now I'm wondering if that show instead produced Stepford Wives instead. I've never seen it, so I don't know for sure.

No big deal. I just thought that there was a difference between a "makeover" and "replacement."

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