You’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all?

[WomanStanleyWoman]

Inspired by the ‘Vera’ thread - what are the shows you can see once, then theoretically never see again without missing anything?

My vote goes to Location Location Location. As much as I love it, the formula is eternally predictable:

‘Steve and Samantha Deluded-Twats are looking for a spacious two-bedroom apartment in west London. They love pricey Chiswick, but only have £300k to spend. They’re hoping that, with our help, they can find an area nearby with an attractive high street with a villagey feel and lots of independent shops and cafés, even though they buy everything off Amazon and get their lunch from Tesco Express like the rest of us. Today, I’ll be showing them a one-bed in need of work opposite a condemned council estate now being used as an unofficial skate park and drug den. I REALLY hope they can see the potential’.

Share your nominations…

@JovialNickname

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Gordon turns up at perfectly pleasant but slightly sub par restaurant

Watches first service holding his chin whilst the "diners" (clearly people wheeled in the for the purpose of the programme) make a fuss and send everything back

Gord screams at the head chef calling him "big boy" and throws all his food in the bin. Closes the restaurant. Says the words fucking disgusting. Someone, usually the elderly owner, cries.

Gord then cooks his own dishes that don't look that different to the ones the original chef cooked earlier. All the staff try them and make amazed exaggerated yummy noises.

Restaurant reopens and "customers" (no doubt having had it drummed into them that this is the "after" shot) rave about how incredible the food is.

Yay Gordon has saved the day. The head chef G screamed at previously is now snivelling and telling Gordo how much he respects him.

Shot of Gordon stamping down the street laughing whilst ripping his chefs apron off. "Fuck me" he says. The end.

You've missed out the bit where Gordo dons a crafty disguise so that the restauranteurs won't recognise that they are being assessed, and the bit where takes off his shirt, either to put on his chef's whites, or take them off revealing his dad bod.. and who tells them to all reverently call him "Chef Ramsey"?

I’m loving these 😁😁😁

I forgot Undercover Boss USA. Man in incredibly obvious wig and false moustache makes such a hash of using the machine that puts the jam in the doughnuts or taking a simple customer order that you wonder how he’s still even alive, let alone the CEO of Doolally4Donuts. Feisty server raises her eyebrows and shouts ‘You need to pick up the pace!’

On their break, Feisty Eyebrows reveals to bewigged stranger that she actually dreams of being a marine biologist, but had to leave school at 13 to support her nine siblings, as robbers cut off her father’s legs and used them to beat her mother to death. She’s remarkably stoic about it - ‘It is what it is; I do what I gotta do. It’s family’.

Wiggy reveals his true self. Feisty is stunned to discover she’s on Undercover Boss, having seen nothing odd in a man who looks like he bought his hair in the Halloween aisle at Wilko quizzing her on her tragic past. He buys her a car, a new set of legs for her father, and a luxury trip to Seaworld to get her ‘one step closer to that dream’. She sobs.

@Happymum12345 - Yes to The Waltons! As a teenager I would go to my boyfriend's house every Monday evening.

They always watched The Waltons which started at 8pm and I knew that at 8:50pm precisely, it would be the heart breaking, tear jerking scene and time for me to start thinking about catching the 9:15 bus home!😀

Undercover boss UK style isn't much different , although I am starting to believe that they do know it's not an ordinary terrible at his job Joe and is actually the big boss in a comedy wig.

Friends
Big Bang theory

@Jaysmith71 I love that programme.

Bartender from Utah and an ex marine team up in the bear infested wilderness. They're shocked that despite having no food, they're hungry.

They argue because they're hangry and someone storms off. Slowly though because they're knackered and don't have any shoes.

Someone gets ill and threatens to 'tap out'. On the last day, having lost all body fat reserves, had no food other than leaves in days and missing their dignity, they're surprised that the climb up a sheer cliff to the collection point is 'harder than I thought it would be'. Getting to the top, they then discover that fuck me, there's another mile to swim in crocodile infested waters.

They suspect they'll sink but don't, and i'm sitting there eating biscuits worrying that they'll get eaten by one of the aforementioned alligators or a big piranha.

At the end, they cry and say they missed their family and sit dazed in a truck. All without pants on.

@DedalusBloom

Saved and remade

Angela from Kidderminster has brought in her grandma's hideous old sideboard which she clearly hates 'can't bear to part with.' Much wringing of hands and sorrowful gurning as she reveals heartwarming backstory about Granny who arrived from Slovenia with nothing to her name apart from said sideboard in 1923. Angela reveals she is downsizing and while she is hoping it perishes in a mysterious house fire wants to take it with her, she needs it turned into something more useful and preferably smaller.

Dead-behind-the-eyes Daisy and Actually-extremely-talented Shelley are wheeled out to present their ( always worryingly poor) sketches of their creative vision.

Daisy: "I think I'll basically leave it exactly like it is but possibly insert a pointless piece of Perspex somewhere, making it twice the size, and then paint it in shimmery metallic lilac paint, which will be so inexpertly rendered that the whole thing will look like a six year old's fever dream."

Angela: ( nodding solemnly) "Mmmmhmmph?"

Shelley: "I will actually listen to the brief and present a sensitive reworking of your clearly tyrannical much loved Granny's sideboard, using all original features in quirky and imaginative ways, including hidden drawers, inlaid marquetry and ancient rosewood we've had shipped in from Slovenia to create a small easy to put in the loft and forget about memory box."

Angela: "Oh that's lovely."

Rictus faced presenter: "So, Angela, which one will you go for?"

Me and DH: "Shell-ey! Shell-ey! Shell-ey!"

Angela: "Daisy please."

Cue many cut aways of Daisy labouring over the sideboard, shonky use of jigsaws, inexpert sanding, no priming whatsoever, visible wood glue and vats of lilac paint before Angela is wheeled back in to gape open mouthed at the monstrosity she agreed to because she was so high on green room sherry at the time she thought she was on Bargain Hunt.

Rictus faced presenter encourages Angela to share her feelings about her new heirloom which are clearly 90% How The Fuck Am I Going To Get This Back To Kidderminster and 10% I Really Hope There's More Sherry. Daisy stands next to the item, discreetly propping it up because she's cut one leg shorter than the other, whilst accepting simpering platitudes about her "genius".

FIN.

--

--

I’ve never even seen this, but somehow I know you’ve absolutely nailed it

don’t weather presenters have to have some kind of qualification in meteorology?

Not the local ones. But perhaps unfair to call them shallow. A quick trawl of my local BBC weathergirls reveals one is a sports scientist, another a journalism lecturer and stand-up comedian who runs a theatre school, and a famous former one was a quadrilingual qualified teacher.

One on local does have an Msc in Meteorology.

...the one on ITV.

I got very excited when Lenny of Huw and Lenny from EastEnders turned up as the Central News weatherman!

@WomanStanleyWoman

Inspired by the ‘Vera’ thread - what are the shows you can see once, then theoretically never see again without missing anything?

My vote goes to Location Location Location. As much as I love it, the formula is eternally predictable:

‘Steve and Samantha Deluded-Twats are looking for a spacious two-bedroom apartment in west London. They love pricey Chiswick, but only have £300k to spend. They’re hoping that, with our help, they can find an area nearby with an attractive high street with a villagey feel and lots of independent shops and cafés, even though they buy everything off Amazon and get their lunch from Tesco Express like the rest of us. Today, I’ll be showing them a one-bed in need of work opposite a condemned council estate now being used as an unofficial skate park and drug den. I REALLY hope they can see the potential’.

Share your nominations…

Ha ha This is so accurate

Death in Parisise!

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale

Rescue mediums. No one but me seems to have heard of it but it was on my netflix for a while.

2 yorkshire women, Alison and Jackie, are in some sort of interesting transport on their way to an unknown location to help family x who are experiencing hauntings. Cut to family members saying what theyve experienced. The narrator continues: Days previously the mediums had some EERIE PREMONITIONS. They tell each other what theyve seen while the other listens with pursed lips. "A man in uniform" "a feeling of being watched" "the name james".
Now we see the mediums arrive at the home and they tell the homeowners their premonitions. The homeowners usually exchange glances and smile. Then the mediums do their observations. They usually feel a spirit or hear or see something. They surround said thing with light and then open the door and watch the person be collected by spirits they knew in their former lives.

Then they sit down with the homeowners and present their research on who they rescued. Usually some immigrant from Ireland who came to Canada in the C19 and suffered some sort of terrible tragedy.

Then they leave, all smiles but finish off with a drink and some awful pun about spirits.

All of that in 20 minutes. Brilliant telly!

I actually know Jackie, she has a shop not far from me and I've had a few readings! Must try to find the show

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

Nothing to actually add but wanted to say OP, great idea for a thread and I love all these descriptions. Perfect

The descriptions are hilarious Love this thread

Any film with Liam Neeson

The summary of In The Night Garden did make me laugh, no matter what version of Iggle Piggle we are referring to. I rather like the Spanish version with Inglesias, I'm hoping Upsy Daisy does the flamenco in it.

Producers!

Are you reading this?

Iglesias Piggle could just be the start! You could go round the world!!!

HNRTT but Money for Nothing. Let's take a piece of metal or wood and incorporate it into something completely new. The wood or metal could have been bought new much more cheaply that the cost of the work taken for it to be usable. The effectively new and handmade item is sold online to someone who wants their business to be seen on TV. All the over-priced value of the new item is from the design and handwork rather than the piece of wood or metal from the item about to be skipped. Good publicity for the craft worker, host and buyer while the person to whom some money is handed looks bemused at the appearance of the item that bears no relation the the item they threw out.

@the80sweregreat

There's always a ' celebrity ' version of these shows isn't there ? Because we really love H from Steps and his antiques. Apart from naked attraction oddly enough ..

Good point . . .

something I doubt we'd be saying about Philip Schofield's willy.

The cleaning ones:
If it's a single woman , she'll be told off for letting the house go to rack and ruin and tutted at at every opportunity
If it's a single man , he'll be told off gently but we will be told his back story to make us feel bad for him and treated rather better by the presenters ( who only do a tiny bit of cleaning and contract out the rest of it to other people who you see trying to hide away in the background actually doing the work)
If it's a couple , they generally both blame each other for the dirt and mess whilst presenters stand over them with a big broom rolling their eyes.
The children will stay out the way until the end when they will appear to marvel at the new sparking home and eat cakes.
The skip man would have made hundreds of pounds profits.

@the80sweregreat I suspect some want to be celebrities would volunteer for Naked Attraction. Who would volunteer and who should participate?

Scarily, I leapt to 'politician's Naked Attraction' instead of celebrities then could stop myself imagining various Cabinet Ministers and PM-want to be's.

I bet Nick Clegg would be up for ' celeb naked attraction' he looked the sort to enjoy that kind of thing. A bit saucy.
Boris's bits would be hidden with a Union Jack flag and Matt Hancock would be rather proud of his one.

@BoredZelda

Happy, smiling, photogenic-but-shallow weathergirl clenches her teeth and tries to remain professional as she thinks of how her dream career in TV has come to this.

I think this is a little unfair, don’t weather presenters have to have some kind of qualification in meteorology?

Just their own bit of seaweed and a confident smile, probably.

[quote Zilla1]@the80sweregreat I suspect some want to be celebrities would volunteer for Naked Attraction. Who would volunteer and who should participate?

Scarily, I leapt to 'politician's Naked Attraction' instead of celebrities then could stop myself imagining various Cabinet Ministers and PM-want to be's.[/quote]
Lauren Harries, if she counts as a celebrity, has actually appeared on it.

Boris's bits would be hidden with a Union Jack flag and Matt Hancock would be rather proud of his one

Boris's bits would be hidden by his own saggy belly, and Hancock's covered by an NHS badge.

An NHS badge!!
Of course