What was this TV show?

[SunInTheSkyYouKnowHowIFeel]

It was a TV documentary where about 4 or 5 families had to live like early settlers to the US (I think, although perhaps I have the time period wrong). Each family had to make a house, farm etc & I think may have lived there for a whole year. At the end they got judged as to who was the best family, and I have a feeling the winners got disqualified as they had secretly been using a modern bed?

Anyone know what this show was called as i'd love to watch it again

[DulciUke]

Frontier House, I believe. Came out in 2001.

[EineReiseDurchDieZeit]

I remember this - one of the families were really rich and brought their niece with them as well. They cheated but didn't care

One of the coupled had a Ye Olde Frontier Wedding

At the end, one of the husbands left one of the wives and went to live in the woods by himself

[SunInTheSkyYouKnowHowIFeel]

Thank you! That sounds like it, and Eine I had forgotten those things so even more looking forward to watching it again now!

[RozHuntleysStump]

Let us know if you find it. Sounds like my kind of thing.

[josbd]

I remember that! Was excellent!

[DulciUke]

Wasn't that the one where the husband kept insisting that he must be ill because he was losing so much weight, only to be told that it was just the result of a restricted diet and lots of exercise? Sort of a "this is what you are SUPPOSED to look like".

[BoreOfWhabylon]

It's on Youtube!

[SunInTheSkyYouKnowHowIFeel]

Thank you Bore! Off to watch it!

[RozHuntleysStump]

I'm watching it now. Interesting!

[contactusdeletus]

The early 00s had so many shows like this. I remember one about teenagers doing their O Levels in a 50s style school, and another one where a family had to live in a Victorian house. They properly committed to the reality TV aspect back then, you felt much more immersed in the era.

In recent years they haven't quite been able to replicate the same feel. I remember watching one where a family was living in the 1970s, on BBC4, but the program dedicated most of its run time to explaining 70s tech and spent barely any time at all on the family adjusting to it. It felt very threadbare as a program.

There was another one where they replicated a Victorian slum too, but it fell apart a bit because they kept sending them out to sell flowers and watercress and things to modern day Londoners. I appreciate that they were trying to replicate the working day, but it just made the whole thing seem a bit of a farce. It didn't achieve the right emotional effect either, tbh. Genuine Victorians wouldn't have been laughing at these street sellers and trying to take selfies with them, they would have just walked on by.

It's a shame. It was a really compelling format and really made history come alive when they could be bothered to put the effort in and when they found the right people to participate.

[SunInTheSkyYouKnowHowIFeel]

I remember a victorian house one, was it called the 1900s house or something? I agree those kinds of programa really bring history alive.
The bit I liked about the victorian house was when they got caught on the local supermarkets CCTV buying shampoo! A compromise was reached and the children were allowed to shampoo their hair so they didnt get picked on at school

[WingBingo]

I love the Johnny Vaughn series were a group were convinced they had gone to space.

Never happened but it was so good watching the contestants think they were observing earth from a space ship even though they were in Norfolk.

[SunInTheSkyYouKnowHowIFeel]

Wing I'd forgotten about that! All that classroom training they had to do too, and the airplane ride to "Russia" which in reality was just them circling the south of England for a few hours.
And didn't they even cook up a plausible reason that there was not zero gravity on board. It was hilarious!

[Defaultname]

The school one was 'That'll Teach 'em', which reconstructed a '50s co-ed publice school. They had problems with shampoo and deoderant, too. And exams.!

[Defaultname]

Oops. Public school, not publice.Though then again...