Come Watch Come Dine With Me (Come Dine With Me)

Member Name: Splend42

Product:	Come Dine With Me
Date:	24/08/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Often hilarious, tasty recipes, sarcastic narrator

Disadvantages: Sometimes the nutters are TOO irritating

I have just been ridiculed by a room full of my friends because I just found out that Come Dine With Me has restarted again tonight, and I squeaked a little. It seems Reality TV is not something that it is cool to get excited about, even when it is about food.

Come Dine With Me is a show where 4 contestants (though it used to be 5 for the first three seasons) compete to throw the best dinner party and win the coveted £1000 cash prize. Sounds like it might be a yawnfest, but it's really not. Channel 4 has an odd tendency of finding the looniest people possible to be contestants on their shows (Big Brother, anyone?) and this one is no different. Amongst the lovely people who clearly deserve to win for the effort put into their cooking, there are liberal hadfuls of nutters, arrogant people with delusions about their skills and belligerent contestants seemingly intent on ruining everyone else's evenings.

The host sends their guests a menu (where 9 times out of 10 there is an item that someone can't pronounce - but that never stops them trying, bless them!) and poddles off to collect the ingredients whilst their guests moan about how their choices are full of things they don't like. The guests turn up and the host finishes preparing food (or, in some cases, doesn't and then has to keep their guests waiting all night) while their guests potter around their house making judgements about their host's lifestyle. Then dinner is served and post-dinner entertainment is generally offered, often in an attempt to get the guests to forget the awful food!

When the guests go home they give the evening a rating out of 10. There's usually at least one who scores strategically low in an attempt to make the system work to their advantage - luckily they tend to be the worst cooks and the least charismatic hosts so they lose anyway!

The most enjoyable aspect of the show is the narrator, Dave Lamb. His contribution is excellent because he mocks the contestants so you don't have to! I love dry sarcastic humour, and he delivers it in spades.

I missed tonight's episode, but will be watching it on catch-up TV.

Summary: Come Dine With Me is reality TV at its finest.