Come Dine With Me (Come Dine With Me)

Member Name: laukez

Product:	Come Dine With Me
Date:	02/09/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hilarious narration and a brilliantly simple format

Disadvantages: Sometimes has an air of human bear-baiting (though at the same time thats why I love it!)

This is trashy T.V. at its absolute finest! Come Dine With Me is a reality show, but I enjoy possibly more than most and it is defnitely the best tea time viewing on telly at the minute!

Come Dine With Me is based on a group of people from the same city or area visiting each others houses where they each in turn cook for the other guests. There have been two formats to the show - the hour long episodes which are the more recent. These were developed when the show went prime time from its tea time slot, and show four people cooking for each other in the space of an hour. The older version sees five people cook for each other in five half hour episodes over the week. In both versions the hosts are given marks out of ten by their guests, and the highest score wins £1000 at the end of the week.

Personally I prefer the older format as you get to see more of the contestants chatting and see more of the delusions and ego which make the show so fascinating. The contestants almost without fail end up bitching and fighting, or stabbing each other in the back. It really does make compulsive viewing to see how low people will sink for £1000, and how truly horrible relative strangers are prepared to be to one another over a meal.

Sometimes watching the show can admittedly become a little uncomfortable as contestants have bullied and harangued their fellow diners. The show sometimes has an air of bull-baiting about it. It seems the producers deliberately choose personalities to clash. But at the same time this is the most fascinating thing about the show. Its a thin line to tread.

While various contestants have thought themselves and their cooking the best thing since sliced bread (really, their arrogance is incredible) the real star of this show is the narrator Dave Lamb. His witty and acerbic put-downs are damning of the contestants' performances, always sarcatic and pretty hilarious.

Overall, I love this show and if I'm honest I love it because of the human car crashes it gives airtime to. Sometimes you end up really hating contestants but can't fail to watch them be ripped apart behind their backs or even to their faces.

Summary: A great tea-time watch