bitchgtv-blog

[bitchgtv-blog]

Good Bones, bad jokes

Do you ever watch Good Bones on HGTV? It’s a mother and daughter team that fix up old houses, essentially. It’s not terrible! But a little bit of the mom, Karen, goes a long way. She’s the type who laughs UPROARIOUSLY at every joke, whether or not it’s funny. For instance, if you and Karen were about to drink some wine, and as you lifted the glass to your lips you said, “I have grape expectations for this wine,” she would fucking lose her shit laughing. It would go on an uncomfortably long time. This doesn’t make her a bad person! It’s just very grating after a while.

Also, she makes bad jokes and keeps making them even after it’s apparent that no one thinks the joke is funny. A recent episode focused on the house her daughter, Mina, was renovating for herself and her husband while pregnant. Karen made a joke that the house was Mina’s “Taj Mahal” which, first of all, that is a mausoleum.

She insisted on interrupting people to make this joke several times and then at one point she started to call it the “Taj Ma-Mina” WHICH IS NOT CLEVER. If she had called it the “Taj My-hal” or...I dunno, “Taj Mina-hal” it might have been a little funnier, ONCE, but she beat it until it was dead and then beat it some more. It reminded me of an idiot who once referred to President Obama as “Odumbo,” which, come on. “Obummer” was no less stupid but at least it made more sense!

In conclusion, don’t make jokes unless you are a good joke maker. Just stick to refinishing old hardwood floors and let someone else do the jokes, KAREN.

[bitchgtv-blog]

*eyeroll emoji*

Is it wrong to hate the show Home Town? I feel like it is. The couple who host the show (Ben and Erin? Who even knows anymore) are probably really nice. In fact I actually like Ben, who is funny in a regular guy sort of way (not in a garish overgrown class clown way like some people’s husbands) and who can also really build stuff or at least is edited to look like he can.

So what is it about this show that is so bad? Their designs are fine, cute even, and actually seem tailored to suit the homeowners as opposed to Joanna Gaines’ one-note white-on-white shabby-chic dirge of a design aesthetic. 

Truthfully, almost everything that is annoying about it has more to do with the production than the people. For the love of god could home shows once and for all do away with the shitty fake “after these messages” cliffhangers? If I have to grit my teeth through the equivalent of another ARE Y’ALL READY TO SEE YER FIXER UPPER??!?!!?! I think I shall scream. Home Town does this too but instead of delivering a catchphrase they rely on the *rips drywall away* *breathy gasp of what could be joy or despair* or sometimes just showing the homeowner round a corner of their new home and going OHH MAAHHHHH GAWWWWWDDD before the cameras cut swiftly to an ad for the realtor.com app. (Just onnnnnnnnnce would it be too much to ask for the camera to pan to a dead vagrant sprawled on the recently refinished hardwood floor instead of a Dream Kitchen™?)

I also for some monstrous reason hate the part where Erin sits down with her lil ole watercolor set and creates a “color story” or some shit for the homeowner. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF PAINT CHIPS. JFC go to the Benjamin Moore store and save everyone some time.

[bitchgtv-blog]

MDLA, part 2

Part 1 is here.

I’ve only watched maybe three seasons of this show, so I’m not sure who’s been around the longest or anything like that, but I do think they draw straws at the beginning of every season to see who gets the likable edit and who has to be the shit stirrer. I’m sure 80% of whatever drama ends up on the air is completely manufactured, but I’m also sure that all of them are thirsty enough not to care.

On MDLA there are two male British realtors who work as a pair, two gay male realtors who work independently, one straight douche-bro type guy, and a human cartoon of a woman who checks off an awful lot of stereotypical wealthy LA white woman boxes.

The British guys are...interesting. One of them, David, has been somewhat absent so far this season, but James and his definitely not-at-all-coked-up intensity have gotten a lot of screech – I mean, screen – time. It’s not really fair on him to suggest a substance abuse problem (especially because I don’t think he drinks), he might just be frightfully intense. These two seem to get yelled at a lot by their developer “friends.” James in particular makes a lot of try-hard cheesy jokes.

Josh Altman is the douche-bro and he works with his more tolerable if less remarkable brother. In fact the brother is sort of like a Xerox of the first guy. Remarkably similar, but less distinct. He serves mainly to woodenly inform Josh of things that move the storyline along, whether it’s a new listing or someone talking shit about him. Josh Altman also has a realtor wife, Heather, who has been on the show a long time and has had what seems like a lot of face surgery for a person so young and attractive to begin with. In the episode aired two weeks ago Heather gave birth to a daughter, and then last week’s episode opened with shots of an EXTREMELY LARGE INFANT, who was billed as being “three months old.” First of all, that is either a stunt baby or someone is lying, because the child they showed in the episode was at least six months old but more likely eight or nine.

The other woman, Tracy, is a new character and wow, you guys. She has no ability to frown or move any of the skin above her eyebrows, and some extremely aggressive lip fillers. She has a cologne-ad husband and two daughters and every so often she fake-cries performatively about how totally hard it is to be a working mom (who is incredibly rich and privileged). She says a lot of catchphrases you’d find on coffee mugs, like “girl power” and “crush it” and “rosé all day.” She is extremely tiresome, has an exceedingly high opinion of herself, and employs a young assistant who has also had some things done to her face. Tracy’s job on the show, as far as I can tell, is to view and explain everything through the lens of being A Woman Who Sells Real Estate. It makes for a lot of unnecessary and cheesy soundbites.

And then there is Josh Flagg, Keebler Elf of my heart, eccentric old gay millionaire in an eccentric young gay millionaire’s body, he of the meringue hair and velvet slippers and Rolls Royce. Josh Flagg can do no wrong and gives no fucks. He is either a splendid actor or actually a pretty nice person who likes other people, old houses, and old money. He has a beautiful fiancé named Bobby and apparently a family fortune, plus of course the millions he rakes in selling houses. He has an ongoing feud with Josh Altman, predicated on Josh Altman’s insecurities and jealousies, and while it’s tiresome when this chestnut is lobbed to inject “buzz” into a season, it’s also beautiful. For Josh Flagg could care less. He is not in the least bothered by Josh Altman’s feelings of inadequacy, which further serves to drive Josh Altman up the wall. 

I was actually going to wrap this post up but then remembered Madison, who was edited very annoyingly last season but is getting a very good treatment this time around. He has a nice new boyfriend that seems a little uncomfortable on camera and a lot of good outfits. He is very tan.

[bitchgtv-blog]

MDLA, part 1

Have you ever seen Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles? Not to be confused with Million Dollar Listing New York or Bajillion Dollar Properties (which is a note-perfect parody of MDLA), this show airs on Bravo and not HGTV but we’re gonna ignore that because it’s about real estate and everyone on it is super messy.

Full disclosure: I watch this show on purpose because my husband loves it, specifically because it is so silly and also because you get to see a lot of very expensive houses. Most of these homes are overbuilt glass and marble tombs that appear custom-made to serve as either porn sets or places for Russian cryptocurrency billionaires to do coke.

I think the show is meant to be aspirational, but there is a very depressing undercurrent that, knowing how Bravo specifically operates in this kind of space (look how rich and privileged these housewives are, and they’re still super fucking gross and miserable), might also be intentional. It’s nice to think about being rich enough to spend $16 million on a house in Beverly Hills or $250,000 a month in Malibu, but everyone on this show looks fucking terrifying and acts like a spoiled asshole baby. 

Most of the grand, super-expensive houses on display are slick, cold, and tacky. At least half the time they are sold to “wealthy Chinese investors” and in fact most are purpose-built with Russians, Saudis, or Chinese buyers in mind. Multi-million dollar houses built ten years ago are considered wildly outdated and are often torn down so something bigger and flashier can be built in its place, and most likely that place is going to be bought by a person who has multiple homes all over the world and might use the house twice a year. Last week featured a $200 million house with a 350,000 gallon pool that has sat mostly unused for two years. Knowing the drought and fire Californians have experienced in recent years I was compelled to exclaim aloud “that’s disgusting,” which probably means it’s not the show for me and yet I can’t look away.

[bitchgtv-blog]

The return of House Hunters

I’m not sure what’s going on with HGTV of late but it’s like all of a sudden I can see episodes of...House Hunters? I don’t know if you remember that show but it used to be the sole reason to watch HGTV. To be honest I’m not sure if these are new episodes or what but it has been sooooo nice to see frumpily dressed middle Americans be judgy about charmless suburban tract homes again!

[bitchgtv-blog]

Who is being blackmailed to keep this show on the air?

I speak, of course, of Flip or Flop, an inexplicably popular show featuring the most boring people on the planet. I am not even saying this to be mean. I just don’t even think that Tarek and Christina are all that jazzed about being on the show and they are the show. They seem pretty distinctly uncomfortable and pretty distinctly scripted most of the time which does not do anything to help me solve the head-scratcher of why on earth this show is still around.

Is it because of California? Is there such a glut of foreclosed/gross houses on the market, with so many demanding-but-helpless would-be buyers, that it would be silly not to keep doing literally the exact same renovation over and over again?

That last criticism isn’t entirely fair anymore because as the show has increased in popularity (WHY) the flippers seem to have more money or at least less caution about spending extra cash on finishes other than laminate, travertine, earth tone bathroom tile and that god damned omnipresent and already entirely dated Santa Cecilia granite. Maybe that has made the show more interesting? 

I don’t know how anyone can listen to these two have the same conversation week after week (or hour after hour if you are familiar with the average HGTV programming schedule):

Him: We can’t spend more money we have already spent so much money

Her: This thing I am pointing at will attract more buyers

Him: It’s too expensive 

Her: What about this other thing that looks like the first thing except cheaper

Him: OK

Further puzzling is that there are now two spinoffs or whatever of this show called Flip or Flop: Selling Summer (yards? I guess?) and Flip or Flop Follow-Up. The latter features Tarek and Christina checking up on properties they flipped, liberally borrowing from MLIS listing service “before” photos and previously aired footage. IT IS EXACTLY AS THRILLING AS IT SOUNDS.

I watched one episode of this “show” featuring a house that hadn’t sold as of the first airing, and call me a cynic but I think they hired some actors and rounded up some spare furniture and staged the whole thing. Everyone seemed beyond bewildered and unable to deliver lines that sounded remotely natural, including when the “wife” of the “new owner” gestured grandly at a single cast-off dentist office waiting room chair parked in a sunroom and said “This is where I like to relax.”

[bitchgtv-blog]

What’s the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome again?

If Stockholm Syndrome is sympathizing with your captors then what is the word for starting to hate something you used to enjoy? This is the case with me and Fixer Upper, a show I used to like well enough. Thanks to HGTV’s penchant (please pronounce that in the French style, pahn-SHAHNT) for running a near-constant marathon of one show for six to eight weeks before giving it a rest for 7-10 days and then resuming the onslaught, I now find that the previously charming Chip and Joanna provoke in me a reaction best described as “loathing.”

I know this is blasphemy to a very large cross-section of America, particularly churchy moms who for whatever reason enjoy watching home improvement shows with their gleaming, unspoiled children, but it was inevitable. It is not even Chip and Joanna’s fault! HGTV does this with every show (Flip or Flop being another example except I have never liked that show and rest assured we will discuss that soon) that has any kind of success and I can’t understand it. It is the best and most efficient way to ruin whatever goodwill a show might generate. For me, the line between love and hate regarding Fixer Upper was VERY THIN INDEED.

This has to do with a few things you might only notice if you are forced to watch a show over and over again. Nuances like say the design of the house start to fade into the background (because it is almost always the same - SHIPLAP) and certain things jump to the forefront. For instance, I know that Chip and Joanna’s schtick is that he is the nutty one and she’s the levelheaded one (because men are strong dolts and women are boring, if sometimes useful, scolds) but to be honest there are times when he takes the “certifiably insane toddler” act a bit too far, such as when he CHEWED AND SWALLOWED A DEAD COCKROACH. If I wanted to puke while watching bougie white person television I would tune in to Andrew Zimmern THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Also the preponderance of clients seem to be wholesome, spiritually clean young couples with good bone structure and a baby either recently arrived, currently gestating or, to Joanna’s soaring delight, announced and possibly conceived during the filming of the episode!!!! On the rare episodes featuring single people, much is always made of how great it will be to have a home FOR THE FAMILY YOU WILL SOON HAVE. I realize that this is exactly what appeals to a lot of viewers but it comes off as oppressive, no matter how many old sign letters Joanna hangs on the wall. G E T  M A R R I E D isn’t one I’ve seen yet but then again they don’t show every single room, now do they?

[bitchgtv-blog]

A dumb rule.

Apparently Tumblr can steal your super awesome username back from you if you don’t answer an email? THAT’S JUST WRONG and should be against internet laws.

This whatever it is can now be found at bitchgtv-blog.tumblr.com. A garbage pile with pixelated stock art and text that sounds like lorem ipsum can be found at bitchgtv.tumblr.com.

[bitchgtv-blog]

Love It or List It TOO.

If you didn’t already know this, my least favorite HGTV show is definitely Love It or List It. Lately, however, I’ve taken to watching the less horrible version, Love It or List It Too. This version is still Canadian but it seems to focus on Vancouver and environs, so if nothing else there are always some downright beautiful location shots. The hosts are also less horrid. The realtor is Todd, who aside from wearing a shit ton of makeup is not really that bad. Jillian is also far less annoying than her Toronto-based counterpart (well…the voice will get to you after a while I suppose) but there is one thing that hasn’t changed and that’s the homeowners. They’re still horrible! LIOLI and LIOLIT are both, essentially, shows about what happens to helpless and lazy people with no imagination or what you may have heard called “gumption.” How these people can say they are going to move house — a process that is among life’s biggest pains in the ass — when they can’t do so much as hire a carpenter is beyond me. Last week I saw an episode where a young couple had purchased a house with some inheritance and begun the extensive needed renovations with…an elevated outdoor deck. Yes that’s right! Not the kitchen or the bathroom but the damn deck, which they stupidly had built too large and got flagged with a code violation and stop work order. They’d left the offending deck on the back of the house and the family room torn back to the studs since that time, which was…FOUR YEARS AGO. They also refused to use their kitchen and claimed to eat out or order delivery exclusively. Now granted I have not been in this kitchen but it looked more or less functional, if ugly. Renovations of any type are always more difficult, extensive and annoying than you think they are going to be; they are also typically much more expensive than you bargain for. So you might conclude, hearing the sad tale of this poor young couple, that they simply ran out of the money necessary to finish such a large project. And I did, too, until they announced to Jillian that they could provide her with a budget of $190,000 with which to fix their house. ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY THOUSAND. In the end of course they didn’t get everything on their list, because naturally these are the kinds of people who tend to ignore the un-fun but necessary things that are involved in maintaining a house. Oh my electrical isn’t to code? My foundation is collapsing? But I told you I wanted the walk-in closet!!!!! There is so much pouting on this show. Jillian beautifully renovated the entire first floor of the house but since these people are helpless and dumb they ended up buying a round (yes) contemporary house with a tacky bedrock bathtub. Naturally, it was over their budget.

[bitchgtv-blog]

Where to even begin.

So Scott and Misty (I know) are moving to Greenville South Carolina from Colorado because of Scott's job, which is an accountant or something. Guys, I have to tell you, Scott seems...off. Like he's probably a nice person and he seems super into his family but boy. I don't know.

For one thing he has two "must-haves" that are on the strange side: super high ceilings and NO CREEK in the backyard because SNAKES. He goes into quite the little diatribe about how snakes are a necessary evil in the food chain but he doesn't want them in his house, and I have to ask, is "backyard creek" a super common thing? Like common enough that you'd have to mention not wanting one to a realtor?

Anyway the high ceiling thing gets pretty annoying because he keeps mentioning this "20-foot Christmas tree" that he wants to have and no one can really tell if he's kidding or not and it gets a little old. For one thing I wish people would stop using "vaulted ceiling" interchangeably with "high ceiling" because: not exactly the same thing. But I guess if you are crazy enough to worry about OMG SNAAAAAKES then you are not hung up on semantic details like that.

You know what Misty wants in a house? A nice pantry. Misty seems like a really nice lady.

The budget for all of this is a comfortable (I am assuming, having no knowledge of the Greenville real estate market) $500,000 or so, although Misty would prefer to spend less (LUV U GIRL). They also need an in-law suite for Misty's parents who are moving with them, and access to a community pool for the kids. The average size of the house that this will buy them is around 5,000 square feet (one house is a 6,100-square-foot whopper of a model home).

At some point the realtor states that Scott is probably the most difficult client he's ever had, and I have to say, even though I tend to be a tremendous bitch about the people on these shows, Scott seems like more of a harmless weirdo than "difficult." He's kind of overbearing in a gung-ho scout-troop-leader kind of way but let's face it, we've seen way worse on this show, and usually from 22-year-olds with $150,000 to spend.

Scott makes one bizarre reference to wanting his new house to be "Southern," including the ability to "visualize Civil War battlefields" in the distance, because what could be more homey and welcoming than picturing the senseless large-scale loss of human life from a particularly shameful time in American history? I guess those VAULTED CEILINGS will chase away all the bad thoughts!

In the end Misty wins because they buy the least expensive house with the best pantry and she loves it, so maybe Scott is just full of it? Also rest assured there is NO CREEK anywhere nearby.

#house hunters #hgtv

[bitchgtv-blog]

Weirdness: Island Hunters

Have you seen this? Island Hunters follows the format of House Hunters and House Hunters International except it's whole islands. So far as I can tell there are only two episodes extant: the one with the people who are clearly Doomsday Preppers alternates and the one with the married yacht captains.

The former concerns Bob and Jeanne, who hail from Wisconsin but as far as I can tell live at least part-time, or maybe just extensively vacation, in the Florida Keys. Bob and Jeanne are...how to put this..."salt of the earth" type folks and they are real interested in privacy. Like real interested, to the point where you wonder if maybe they are looking to start a swingers' colony or just need a nice quiet place where they won't be disturbed while dumping a couple of bodies. Bob in particular keeps mentioning zombies, as in, the need to maroon himself on an island in order to prevent being attacked by the coming zombie hordes. This seems like maybe a joke at first but the more you get to know Bob and Jeanne the more you wonder if he isn't pretty serious about that one fact.

Bob and Jeanne are also not terribly concerned about their island having any structures on it. They definitely want to live there, or at least stay there for long periods of time, but do not seem overly troubled by a lack of plumbing or electricity. If these people hadn't obviously consented to be on television I would think they were on the lam following an attempted armored truck heist in the early 70s but what do I know.

SOMEHOW, the couple has ONE MILLION dollars to spend on their zombie-proof island, which as you can probably imagine, while certainly a lot of money, does not really buy you much in the Florida Keys private-island real estate market. All of the islands are pretty small, partially-to-mostly overgrown with mangrove trees and feature a rundown shack or half-finished shelter of some sort. Bob for one seems pretty content to live among the mangroves. He doesn't like "stuff."  He does not also seem to care about utilities or shelter.

Bob and Jeanne inexplicably decide to drop their million dollars on a kinda shitty island with a possibly non-functioning boat moored to one side of it and a couple of picnic shelters in the middle of it. They plan to live in the boat until whenever, including during hurricane season (which Jeanne has the good sense to be skeptical about).

Congratulations on the dumbest use of one million dollars ever.

[bitchgtv-blog]

This show should be called "Are We Hoarders?"

Typically I avoid Love It or List It like YouTube comment sections but it seems to be ubiquitous on HGTV of late. I'm not sure the reason for the love affair (thanks Madame Secretary) but it is on literally (ACTUALLY LITERALLY) all the time.

I watched an episode yesterday about Steve and Jessica and their cute Victorian house and how it has become an unacceptable place for their family of four to live. Now, I am just as beset with first-world problems as the next guy but I have a hard time with these people and their definition of "unacceptable." Electrical hazards, black mold, nonfunctioning toilets, ceiling cave-ins: these are examples of unacceptable things. An ugly bathroom: acceptable. Small kitchen: annoying and acceptable. The fact that you don't magically, through fervent wishing and ardent complaining, have a "sophisticated master retreat" instead of a cluttered bedroom: acceptable and entirely your own doing.

Really...if you're going to complain about how your house doesn't work for you, at least try some curtains on the windows rather than bed sheets.

So Steve and Jessica despair of their house ever being suitable. They can't think how to address the problem. I guess they never thought of CLEANING IT or getting a grip on how Steve is maybe kinda a little bit in the beginning stages of a hoarding issue. You'd think this would be evident based on the stacks and piles and mountains of shit just sitting everywhere, on every surface, but it hasn't occurred to anyone or at least they're not discussing it.

Steve's issues manifest themselves in several ways throughout the episode, like when he goes batfuck about someone leaning a piece of equipment up against an old radio. I would actually buy this if everything in their home wasn't coated in dust and stacks of other stuff. He also at one point loses his marbles about a weird bookcase that his brother-in-law built that for some reason can't be touched, moved or otherwise tampered with (Hilary eventually paints it white despite Steve and Jessica's protests about the "beautiful finish").

In the end Steve and Jessica stay in their house. I have to say it is one of the nicer renovations Hilary has managed to pull off. I would however be interested in a follow-up episode to see if the hoarding has continued.

Luckily there's another show for that.

[bitchgtv-blog]

#firstworldprobs

I have mentioned the show Property Brothers before and I have to say, on the spectrum of HGTV shows it is really not too bad. The hosts are freakishly tall and the one guy always has a regrettable haircut or facial hair thing going on but they are not too objectionable personality-wise. Their designs are always pretty nice. And I also like that they get just as frustrated with the homeowners as I do.

The one problem with the Property Bros (aside from their names...they have one of those first-name-last-names so is it Drew and Jonathan Scott or Scott and Jonathan Drew, or whatever, I can never remember) is of course the people who are buying the home. I will say that newer episodes have been less annoying in this regard but you still get a number of people who are downright perplexed that their $200,000 budget won't actually buy them a $1.5 million home.

Anyway the other night I remarked on Twitter that HGTV should be called "The Imagined Hardships Channel" and the reason I said that is because I really have a hard time with how much grown-ass adults are willing to whinge and whine about not having granite countertops. Or, fuck that, about having to paint a wall or take up carpet.

I realize there is a lot of stress and emotion tied up in buying a home. You're spending all this money and essentially rolling the dice on whether or not you'll be able to afford this constantly breaking/falling apart albatross for the next 30 years and you feel stretched to the limit financially and the last thing you want to do is go to Home Depot and buy some more god damned paint. But if you're on a RENOVATION SHOW I mostly think you should suck it up and prepare to wield a paint roller once in a while.

On Property Brahs the homeowners are always chittering about how OMG harrrrrd it is to go through this grueling renovation, and I'm sorry but aside from the ol' first-swing-of-the-sledgehammer money shot, the people I mostly see crawling under subfloors and breathing in 50-year-old plaster dust are work crews. Meanwhile the homeowners employ the time-honored Seagull Technique which is to swoop in, unceremoniously shit all over everything and then disappear. "I thought it was going to be a double sink!" "But I wanted the custom cabinetry!" "Why can't I have the hammered copper basin!" OH MY GOD LISTEN TO YOURSELF.

You just spent $200,000 on a house and a crew of contractors is totally renovating it for you in a matter of weeks! Maybe you have it better than like 98% of people WHO HAVE EVER LIVED EVER. IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF TIME.

Last night on Property Brahs the homeowner, Amber, whined because an unexpected plumbing problem threatened to derail her plans for a second bathroom with a clawfoot tub (which she will NEVER use because it is in the GUEST BATHROOM) and a chandelier and she remarked, "I'm not very nice when I don't get what I want."

WELL WHAT A PLEASANT YOUNG LADY YOU ARE.

[bitchgtv-blog]

I wonder what it is like to not have an imagination.

It's once again time to crab about my favorite/worst show on HGTV, Love It or List It. This episode is about Rob and Kim, who bought a big house and now feel that it's too big. #firstworldprobs!

The house does seem to be pretty big, and there is some sidebar story about how they thought they were going to start a family but now that's not happening so they don't need all the room. This is not unreasonable, plus if you were planning on kids and now that's not going to work out for whatever reason I can see not wanting to be in the house anymore. However, Rob and Kim's problems (with the house, anyway) are not really that the house is too big, it's that they're slobs and haven't put any work into the house.

When I say "work" I mean things like replacing the 80-year-old windows but I also mean things like hanging pictures on the wall or putting things away in drawers or buying furniture. It's obvious Rob and Kim really just aren't feeling the house, in which case just dump it and move on. Don't invite two hapless dum dums into your lives to jerk you around and fuck up your 1920s house with the original woodwork still intact.

So David and Hilary tour the house and, I'm just spitballing here but it seems like it would be a lot nicer to live in if Rob and Kim ever, say, put any of their toiletries away. There is hairspray and makeup and razors and shit ALL OVER the vanity. And you KNOW they knew there was a TV crew coming to film their shame for all of Canada and part of the US to see, so there is no excuse. Same story in the bedroom, where Rob and Kim appear to be sleeping on a mattress and box springs on the floor, with mismatched plastic storage containers littered around and no art on the walls.

They also complain a great deal about how the old windows, which are "covered" in tattered, yellowed plastic, let in too much cold air and they're freezing all the time. I mean, again I'm just throwing this out there, but maybe replace the windows? It seems to me that while this is undoubtedly an expensive endeavor it is also not brain surgery.

Or maybe you could just replace the plastic that's been there since you moved in and probably since 1967.

[bitchgtv-blog]

CRASH.

So here's an HGTV confession: I hate the Crashers programs. Just all of them. Yard, Bath, House, Garage, whatever they're crashing I hate it. I think this mostly has to do with the set-up of the show, where the host hangs out at a home improvement store and accosts people. He literally jumps in front of them and asks if they need some work done or whatever.

This whole scene makes me super uncomfortable, I can't even watch it. I think I just feel bad for the guy because most of the people act like it is some hobo getting up in their face with a dirty diaper and spray bottle of spit asking if he can wash their baby or something, instead of a well-groomed average-looking or even attractive person with a fucking camera crew behind them. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET RAPED IN THE PAINT AISLE so calm down.

Meanwhile the host has to maintain that irritating jokey clown demeanor they always seem to have on those shows. Like later in the show when they'll have the homeowner looking all uncomfortable in goggles and work gloves, getting ready to have them build a pergola out of old chairs or something equally "whimsical." They'll look at the lady of the house and be all "Well you're a girl so you never build stuff right? You let your husband do that huh? You're like [affected high voice] 'Sure honey that looks great!' right? Meanwhile he's a bumbling idiot right? Hahahaha okay here's how to work a band saw."

Also I have never seen a finished Yard Crashers project where the end result looked like something a regular person would have a hope in hell of maintaining. Like they never come and just put down sod and build a deck, maybe throw in a couple of Japanese maples or whatever. It's like, two water features, a hot tub, a path made out of cement mixed with Swarovski crystals, a wall of flame, a gong and carousel. And it is always themed out the wazoo. It can't just be a garden with a nice patio, it has to be a fucking hacienda or a dojo or a Tibetan monastery! You like southwestern style touches? Well get ready because this crew of bros is about to put a goddamn ADOBE VILLAGE up in your back yard!

I'm just saying, good luck when you try to sell the house.

[bitchgtv-blog]

I choose "Loathe it."

HGTV's Love It or List It  has to be the worst show currently on at least that network if not all of television, and I've seen Real Housewives of Atlanta. Even assuming that everyone involved has been instructed to play up the least attractive aspects of their personality for the benefit of "drama," it's pretty terrible.

I've discussed this show before. It's so bad that it makes me uncomfortable. In fact the episode I saw over the weekend started to kind of ruin my day, because "retired couple" John and Cecile were so relentlessly unpleasant that it hurt my feelings to know they even exist in the same hemisphere as me.

The problem with John and Cecile (other than being picky, unrealistic and lazy) is that life has thrown them a curveball in the form of their great-nephew, Colin, who rarely appears on camera but looms large as a plot point. In fact you kind of start to hate Colin for no good reason, simply because he is constantly being name-checked to the point where you wonder if these people even really like him all that much, or if they are just using him as an excuse to complain and bitch all the time.

Colin can't sleep in the basement. Colin can't be on a different floor from them. Colin needs a play area. Colin would get run over on a busy street. This kid seems like a real pain in the ass but in fact it is John and Cecile who are a real pain in the ass. They find no end of things to complain about, from the stacked laundry units in a first-floor powder room (John: "That's disgusting. I can't pee where I do laundry!") to the outrage over the busy street (which John calls "a freeway").

Also, I have to say, as hosts of the show Hilary and David could not be worse. David basically refuses to listen to anything the homeowners are asking for. Of course, they are asking for the world, but he seems to go out of his way to show them houses that are cramped or in the wrong neighborhood or happen to need so much as a coat of paint or new carpet (no one on this show has one iota of patience for having to lift a finger, home-improvement wise).

And Hilary...wow. Even given that she's working with unrealistic demands and a fairly limited budget, she is pretty much a fucking mess. Nothing ever goes right, and I'm not even talking about the typical oops-we-found-knob-and-tube-wiring issue that is always popping up on these shows. Hilary is always encountering some huge structural disaster that either outright prevents her from delivering on her promises, or she encounters a structural disaster that causes her to make a split-second decision the homeowners hate upon sight.

This show isn't even good from a so-bad-it's-good perspective, which is pretty bad. The conflict between the hosts is too forced (I almost feel bad for Hilary most of the time because she's so bumbling and therefore subject to so much abuse) and the homeowners are abjectly the worst on HGTV, which is saying a lot. A LOT.

[bitchgtv-blog]

Julia's Million-Dollar Husband Trap

My First Place is a much more annoying show than House Hunters/House Hunters International. One reason is that I believe there to be much more faux drama on MFP, particularly the cliffhangers before commercial that lead you to believe the long-suffering first-time buyer has just agreed to purchase a vermin-infested deathtrap. What seems to be a biblical invasion of termites before the break is often dismissed with "exterminator, couple hundred bucks, NBD" from the trusty inspector.

Also the buyers are, on the main, much more irritating. They are either just dumber and more spoiled or deliberately obtuse (about home buying and just...life in general, usually). One of my "favorite" episodes of MFP involves a married couple with a kid that has crummy credit and wants to make an offer on a house, but first the husband has to "fix" his credit (this is accomplished in a laughably simple - and fake - series of quick phone calls), and then at the last minute the deal might fall through because the sellers don't want to pay the closing costs. There is a clip of the wife shrilling "they HAVE to pay our closing costs!" and it always makes me so gleeful/angry because no they don't, dummy.

At the end of MFP, the buyer used to go to their new home and discover a gift from HGTV - usually a set of outdoor furniture or a family room set, sometimes a television or other major appliance - but I don't think they do that anymore. I always liked it when there would be particularly hard-to-please buyer on the show because those people would always end up getting a "gift card" instead of pre-selected furniture. No one wants to piss off a diva.

Anyway, Julia. Julia is looking for a house in Boston, specifically Beacon Hill, which, congratulations and everything but I don't think that $600,000 budget is actually going to take you that far. Sure enough Julia sees a couple of condos that are nice enough, but she feels awfully "cramped" (reminder: she is but one average-sized regular human person, not a giant or mother of six or anything) and her mother, who is "helping" her look for a place, thinks Julia is pretty likely to be raped just about anywhere.

They switch the search to the South End and, at some point, Julia's mother allows that she and Julia's father would be happy to lend Julia more money and bump her budget up to one million dollars. A million. Dollars.

Now, a few things. I am sure (or at least pretty sure, maybe I'm wrong, it's never come up) that my parents would, if able, be willing to lend/give me money if I really needed it to buy a house. But I am also pretty sure that my parents would trust my judgment, as a grown-up person, to a) look for a house in a safe area and b) assess for myself the safety of any area and also c) take reasonable measures to assure my personal safety at any given time.

So anyway, Boston is an expensive city and a million dollars there doesn't buy you what a million dollars in Cleveland or Memphis or Baltimore or Grand Rapids would buy you. So it's not that I think Julia is a jerk for spending that much, it's the way Julia can't stop talking about HOW MUCH MONEY that is and SHE'S SO NERVOUS and OH MY GOSH A MILLION DOLLARS and we get it, shut up, you have a nice life so take the money and stop freaking talking about it already.

Once Julia has a million dollars to spend she magically finds a perfect two-bedroom, two and a half-bathroom condo with a big fenced-in yard. She tapdances around OH MY GOSH A MILLION DOLLARS for a while longer while her mother continues to insist she spend an extra four hundred thousand dollars over her budget so that she'll be "safe," and by the way, won't this be nice when Julia gets a husband? She starts mentioning this "husband" pretty often and then by the end of the show is also talking about kids.

Hey Julia I don't think the low interest rate on that money your folks lent you is going to be worth it after all!