Here's that prat Graham to remind us... (Blind Date)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Blind Date
Date:	23/09/02 (753 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Everything

Saturday night on ITV ... an ominous, depressing, chilling time of the week, when it's far too early to go out and far too late to still be napping or watching the sport. The big bods who run the commercial network have an unfortunate taste in television programmes, and what makes for decent entertainment, and with a misguided conviction that they know best, they have decided that what we deserve is Our Cilla and her 'smash hit TV series', the puerile Blind Date.

Originating where all the very worst family entertainment emerges from, in the land of opportunity, the good old US of A, Blind Date is, as the name suggests, based on bringing together strangers in the hope that they will hit it off and enter into a relationship for life.

Things go like this:

Our Cilla introduces three young blades who are desperate to impress the ladies. The people responsible for this dirge will usually seek to ensure that at least one of these chaps is the very grimmest character in the world and a big mouthed extrovert to boot, in the hope that they will be picked out, thus ruining the street cred of the picker. Cilla says, "Hello number one, tell us who you are and where you come from." "Hello there, Cilla, I'm Duane and I come from BURRMINGUM." RAYYYY!!!! go the studio audience.

When the three saps have shown exactly how enormous their idiocy is, then Cilla gives the instruction for the screen to be drawn across, so that the gargoyles are unable to see what the picker looks like. It is then time for Cilla to introduce the lucky lady who is going to pick her prospective Romeo. She tells us a bit about herself, majoring on the standard 'amusing' anecdote.

Then she gets to ask three questions of each of the mugs, and they demonstrate with their witty, completely off the cuff responses, how wonderful they actually are. At the end of that the beauty gets to pick which man she feels most in tun
e with, but not before Our Graham reminds us all of what those witty responses were, chuckle wheeze, fall about. She picks him, then the two who go unpicked are introduced, "How could you turn down these hunks?" The screen is then withdrawn and our hapless hero and heroine are introduced to each other, and asked what they think. They are then invited to pick their prize, and the bloke ALWAYS goes "Let the lady pick".

After that we get the revelations of the previous week's winners, as to how they got on and how they felt about their prospective partner for life, cue more witty and usually spiteful anecdotes.

Then we get the whole thing in reverse, with one bloke picking from three mysterious femmes fatales, and another couple from the previous week spilling the beans.

Ho hum!

Believe me, Blind Date is one of the most despicable, unpleasant light entertainment programmes ever devised. The contestants are almost without exception intent on making the very most of their fifteen minutes of fame and demonstrating what a handsome/witty/amusing/clever/desirable soul they are. There are several who have gone on to a job in entertainment and that is really what their goal is for going on the job. They try far too hard and are egged on to go completely over the top by the programme planners. They know that the more abysmal and unlikable their contestants are, the more we love the show. It's a bit like WWF really, where we long to watch the baddies, and see them get a slating. We want a cad to win, just so that the sweet young thing can tell us just how appalling/shallow/ill-mannered/terrible they actually were (cue more applause and cheering). The bounder will then demonstrate even more roundly exactly how bad he is by complaining that he didn't get a shag, and he didn't want to shag her even if it had been on the cards, because she's just too short/ugly/stupid/stuck-up.

Blind Date
is just one of a host of such programmes which seem to thrive in the Saturday early evening slot, but it is without doubt one of the very, very worst, and there is literally nothing of any merit about it. It's irritating/annoying/embarrassing/childish in the extreme, and I do whatever is required to get out of watching it. Doubtless if you've experienced the true horror of watching this programme, you will agree with me, but believe me there are an awful lot of people who actually like it, arguing that it's so bad, it's good. Well, don't be conned. Blind Date is actually so bad, it's terrible.

Summary: