Incredible trash (The Jeremy Kyle Show)

Member Name: jesperado

Product:	The Jeremy Kyle Show
Date:	07/02/09 (110 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun to watch

Disadvantages: Not for good reasons!

The Jeremy Kyle Show is a talk show for ITV, which deals with a variety of problems faced by ordinary people. It's pretty similar in style to American talk shows such as The Jerry Springer Show or Maury although it is not quite as outrageous and doesn't have the same element of humour as these shows.

Most of the shows seem to feature a lie detector test, a DNA test or both. It never ceases to amaze me just how many teenage girls there are who don't know the father of their babies. There are some genuinely horrible people on the show who call their pregnant ex-girlfriends 'slags' when it is in fact them that have been sleeping around. I feel sorry for a lot of the young girls on this show as some of them have just made a few mistakes but have ended up having to live with someone horrible just to provide for their family.

Jeremy has very little sympathy for anyone apart from victims of domestic abuse. In pretty much every episode he berates unemployed wasters for living off his tax money, teenagers for being 'kids having kids' and shouts at young parents to USE SOME CONTRACEPTION!!!!

As well as the young parents or those in weird love triangles there are the occasional shows about alcoholic or drug-addicted parents and the damage they have caused in their children's lives. These can get a bit exploitative as Jeremy encourages the crying sons and daughters to explain in explicit detail just what awful things their parent has done. But apart from the freakshows and heartrending stories of neglect and abuse there are sometimes stories of human triumph in the face of adversity as Jeremy interviews survivors of tragedies such as the 7/7 bombings.

When the story looks like it might have a glimmer of hope of resolution in it, Jeremy calls in his trusted colleague, psychologist Graham. Graham puts me in mind of an old-fashioned stage hypnotist of the kind that tours small theatres, forcing unsuspecting audience members to reveal embarrassing secrets about themselves whilst under his influence. Graham tells the poor souls Jeremy has just been shouting at that with the help of him and his expert team they might be able to rebuild their relationship and get over the fact that Kev has had a threesome with Sharon's sister and her mum and that with a lot of work from the both of them they might just be able to work towards that happy life in an Essex bedsit that they've always dreamed of.

The Jeremy Kyle Show is almost the definition of trash TV. Jeremy himself does not seem to have any real qualifications for his position and as you watch him more and more it seems like he's trying not to show how much he is enjoying berating chavs on national television. I have been in the audience for this show and I can confirm that Jeremy Kyle seems just as arrogant and smarmy between takes as he does on screen! This programme is trash but it is often enjoyable in the same way that a circus freakshow would be, which can't be good for the soul.

Summary: Simultaneously great and awful