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…

Let's face it, most TV shows are formulaic. If a producer hits a winning formula and gets good ratings they are unlikely to change it.

This isn't new though. DH and I have seen several operas. Most of the operas we have seen were written in the 18th and 19th centuries. The formula that most of them have followed is boy meets girl, they fall in love, one of them dies, the end.

Castle. I’m currently binge watching on Disney and I’m not sure i’m enjoying at all.

Victim found.
Castle doing something that shows what a cool dad / how fun he is.
Beckett rings. Castle and Beckett investigates.
Each person it could be it isn’t and gives a clue to the next person to speak to. Each person in turn has a cast iron alibi.
The victim has some visit before they were murdered by someone who didn’t do it, sometimes as little as 10 minutes before the murder.
Murderer is found 7 minutes or less before end of show. If it’s 7 minutes or more it’s the wrong person. Castle will realise this when talking with his family, they will say a phrase that will make him think aha!

@Unfashionable

In the Night Garden. Iglesias Piggle goes to bed. The end.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

@ArcticLemming

Grand Designs does occasionally throw a curved ball where one of the couple dies, possibly of boredom (or is that down to Kevin too?).

He's impregnating the wives and killing the husbands? I think you might be onto something. If only the pesky cameras weren't rolling he could dispose of the bodies in all that brutalist concrete.

Yeah, why do these stock broker fat cat salary , now on big pension , lived in a city all their life want to move miles from anything at all ?
Why? You know it's a bad move really ..

@FelicityBeedle - you're absolutely right, I did! But in going wrong, his initial well-intentioned but short-sighted plan teaches him a vital lesson, currently about white/male privilege, and allows an opportunity for a particularly sincere face as enlightenment dawns.

Every documentary about a rock band that is shown on BBC 4 9pm on a Friday night.
Band gets together as young kids from the wrong side of the tracks in the 60's/70's/80's.
After an initial struggle to be heard band becomes a huge commercial success.
Band members embrace the sex and drugs rock and roll lifestyle fully.
At least one band member suffers burnout and wants to quit and become a farmer.
Another leaves for "artistic reasons" but really to pursue a solo career.
Another has become totally dependent on heroin or alcohol and is hussled off to rehab before the adoring public notice
All of them by now have traded in their original girl-next-door wives for ex glamour models.
The band falls apart amongst bitterness and recriminations, even though they really "loved each other as brothers once."
Several decades later royalty payments are drying up and the band decides to reform. The singer's voice has gone, the drummer has RSI in both wrists, and the bloke on bass who has always resented the lead singer's success with women plots a passive-aggressive revenge.
But bolstering their pension and paying maintenance for their by now multiple ex wives is hugely attractive and enough to persuade them to do a tour and release their back catalogue.
End of documentary.

Strictly was a bit different last year as the audience didn't exist and the whopping and shouting was not happening at all!
This year it'll be up the Max with lots of ' we are back bigger than everrrrr .. ' type talk ..
Oh and sodding Blackpool mentioned every five minutes!

@EsmaCannonball, your synopsis of a programme I have never seen made me laugh so much. And I think I've never seen it because of the details in your synopsis !

Secret Eaters

Overweight person: “I don’t know why I’m fat. I hardly eat anything.”

They spend a week being filmed by hidden cameras.

Presenter: “How many calories do you think you ate per day, on average?”

Overweight person: “Er, 1,900?”

Presenter: “No, Fatty, you ate 3,600.”

@the80sweregreat

I do like a horder / cleaning programmes, but they have the same formula too.

Yes, this. I love them, though

@CattyMcNips

Sarah Beany's How to live mortgage free...

"John plans to live mortgage free... buy building a house out of cheese/tin cans/pallets in the grounds of his family's estate/farm/garden."

Ahhhh i so agree with this. I remember watching the first couple with the expectation that it would have helpful advice....but it was just John/Jack/James parents have a large farm in yorkshire, then John/Jack/James converts old truck and parks it somewhere on his parents farm! Grrr!

@SchadenfreudePersonified
I would absolutely watch that

@WorriedWishingWell does the documentary mention the manager in the background who makes more money than any band member and takes the blame for all the evil, money-making decisions?

Gardeners' World.
People grow stuff, people remove some of the grown stuff because it's dead or to make room for more stuff.

@Doubledeckers

Last of the Summer Wine (80s version)

• sat around chatting
• opportunity for mischief/fun/money making
• not everyone thinks it’s a good idea
• task goes wrong and there is a chase
• minor injury but nothing too serious
• all turns out in the end but not before Norah Batty has admonished Compo

You've missed Compo sliding down a hill on a tray

The band ones is spot on! ( I do love them though )
Of course they have to reform as the money ran out a while back because they all took each other to court over a blooming song and it dragged on for years and years.
Life must be too short really ?
Being a big rock band must be exhausting.

I love the hoarder programs but hate the constant recaps

Any ' I can make you rich ' programmes don't.
The cleaning ones ; the po faced cleaner holds up a greasy tray or a disgusting saucepan and goes ' when did you last clean this eh' ???
Answer ; in 1976

Ambulance
Elderly person has a fall and paramedic gets to say "You're 90? Bet you've got a few tales to tell."
Motorbiker has nasty accident.
Another paramedic explains they chose the job because they saw their gran being revived when an ambulance came to their house in 2003.
Both paramedics share a joke and song along to a song on the radio
One paramedic sheds a tear for the elderly person who fell earlier.
No more than one person is allowed to die per episode.

The endless recaps are annoying on all these shows,
I only watched it five minutes before the ads, I do remember what I was watching back then ..

Does anybody remember the original The Bill?

June and Bob exchange meanful looks over a hob nob at the station.
Meanwhile on the Jasmine Allen a skinny yooth is up to no good.
Detective in herringbone tweed coat is on the fiddle and a made up hag who is aged 14 has ratted on her Tom.

@CattyMcNips

Sarah Beany's How to live mortgage free...

"John plans to live mortgage free... buy building a house out of cheese/tin cans/pallets in the grounds of his family's estate/farm/garden."

Those ones drive me mad. Mortgage-free because my dad's a farmer. Grrrrr!

It's a bit like those Feed Your Family For Fiver A Day articles, with some woman who spends 12 hours a day soaking pulses and the other 12 driving round six different supermarkets at just the right time to get the discount stuff. The petrol would bankrupt you (if you even had a car in the first place).

@EsmaCannonball

Lol. I did a very similar review of escape to the country on page 5 but for some inexplicable reason it cant be shown until MNHQ have checked it out.
Maybe one of them is Linda or Colin from Reading who want to retire to Devon, and objected to their details being shared!🤣

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