The Jeremy Kyle (Freak) SHow (The Jeremy Kyle Show)

Member Name: Scottyboy_Peanut

Product:	The Jeremy Kyle Show
Date:	22/07/09 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not the worst daytime TV, Jeremy is a likable chap and you'll learn about modern Britain

Disadvantages: It get's a bit samey, not exactly essential viewing.

The Jeremy Kyle show is on ITV weekdays from 9.25am and repeated in the afternoons on ITV2. It follows the usual talk show format.

The guests are the general public who come on to share their sometimes very personal problems with the nation in search of some kind of solution. There is no shortage of takers so I guess most people value their privacy far less than I do these days.

The topics are usually serious and life affecting. This isn't like some of the American talk shows that deal with ridiculous issues like being a lesbian trapped in a man's body or a homophobic homosexual. Those shows are surely just amateur dramatics. The Jeremy Kyle show does seem to be genuine which makes it more disturbing.

The problems the guests come onto the show for have usually fit into a relatively narrow band of categories. The first is confirming the identity of a father through DNA, the next is exposing a cheating lover through a lie detector, and lastly reuniting family members. The later of these is the most heart warming and can leave you with a good feeling inside.

There are a few specials where Jeremy goes to Africa to visit an aids hospice or has guests that are coping with life with a rare disability but these are few and far between. Jeremy shows a lot of care and compassion during the specials which very different to when he is dealing with the usual family problems that make up the majority of his guests.

I really didn't want my review of this show to turn into a judgement against the kind of person that appears on it but it is quite hard to avoid because that they are the man focus.

The vast majority of the guests are the kind of people that can send property prices spiralling downwards if they happen to live in your area. I would go as to say that if ever I saw someone on the show from my own town I would take it as a sign that it was time to live elsewhere.
The Jeremy Kyle show for me serves as a daily newsflash on what is wrong with modern Britain. It's quite a horrific to see how our society has deteriorated morally and intellectually.
Each day we are presented with a new array of young girls who slept with multiple boys, fell pregnant and now want to know who the father is. There is usually a boy that is currently in a relationship with her and he usually hopes he is the biological father. The DNA holds the key to the poor boys future but rather than tell him straight off Jeremy prefers to have a little chat with him and find out what kind of boy he is. Usually he will be a jobless layabout and proud of it so Jeremy gives him a grilling which makes good viewing because he's saying everything the rest of us would like to.
I have to admit, although the boys deserve whatever talking to they get from Jeremy the young mothers are usually let off the hook unfairly for the most part. As they say, it takes two to tango, and if a girl chooses to produce offspring with a jobless layabout she is already a bad mother in my opinion.

For the most part I like the way Jeremy runs his show. He insists on good manners and an almost school teacher way. When he is speaking he expects to be listened to and he is quite successful in producing conversations where each person listens to the others. I doubt many of the guests on his show have ever actually managed to do that before so they surely go away having learnt a new skill.

Every once in a while Jeremy will give a little speech than invariably begins "Maybe I'm very old," and goes on to ask why romance is dead, why couples don't date for a while and move through the stages together to get to know each other before getting married, having sex, and then when they feel ready, producing kids. I wonder it too and I'm not quite as old as Jeremy.

Not to be left out there are older couples on the show too. For example a middle aged woman will want to know if her middle aged boyfriend has cheated on her. Quite often the lie detector will prove he has indeed cheated and the nation is left staring at its screens wondering how such an out of shape specimen lacking in charm and intelligence could ever manage to find more than one willing partner.

There is an upside to the show though. They have a crack team of counsellors, addiction therapists and psychologists on hand to give these people the support they need if they are willing to accept help. There must surely have been quite a few lives turned around thanks to appearing on this show and for that it serves a purpose other than simply being a freak show of the underclass.

Jeremy can come across like a self righteous know it all at times which may irritate some as he takes the moral high ground despite being divorced and remarried and therefore far from perfect himself. On the whole though I find him quite a likable character and he comes across as the working class lad done well without rubbing his success in our faces.

I don't know if the show serves as a warning to younger people to avoid getting mixed up in the lifestyle represented here or makes it appear normal and therefore totally excusable. I very much hope it is the first option for some at least.

Overall I do somehow enjoy watching this even if it does make me sad about the current state of our nation most of the time. There are worse ways to spend an hour watching day time TV than this and only The Wright Stuff that is significantly better.

Summary: Acceptable day time TV. Jeremy is often the only thing on the show that isn't trash.