MovieChat Forums > Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (2003) Discussion > Why does this show seem so phony to me?

Why does this show seem so phony to me?

posted 16 years ago by tdigiano
6 replies | jump to latest

The network can't lie about helping people but I wonder how true the episode is to the actual end result. There seems to be too many scripted scenes and lots of editing. I also have the same feelings about those Survival shows. It just seems to phony while they are making it. Do they really build a whole house? Probably. Do they do it in a week? Maybe not but we are made to believe they do. I am sorry but this show just seems to phony to me. At least Ty Pennington makes it entertaining. The Bob Vila of comedy.

[–] spoind 16 years ago

They just got through with filming an episode in my town in Michigan. YES...they do build a whole house and YES....it is done in a week. Actually, they demolished it on Sunday and turned the keys over to the cast on Thursday. It's really quite a spectical to watch. I also wondered how scripted the show was and now that I have seen first hand I feel disappointed. On the day of the "Move that Bus" everything was take after take. Even the scene where the family pulls up in the limo is taped before they even get there! I still LOVE the show and the cast was great about coming out and taking pictures and signing autographs for people. The house they built for this family is beautiful and they are very deserving. I guess that we need to remember that at the end of the day though it is still a tv show.

[–] tdigiano 16 years ago

cool. thanks

[–] purple_dave 16 years ago

Lansing? I actually helped out on that one towards the end, and indeed it did only take six days from when they tore down the old house early Sunday morning, and when they finally let the family walk through the front door. I wasn't there for the first four days, but from what I did see on Thursday/Friday, they have a small army of tradesmen covering the construction aspects, they run long hours each day, and they have several people on-site whose sole job at the time is to make sure that whatever needs to get done _does_ get done. Also, they probably don't even show up on-site until they have nearly all the resources arranged, from base construction to interior decor, so they aren't often stuck waiting for supplies to show up (and whenever one project does get held up, there are probably a dozen more that can get started in the meantime). For the family, this may be a big charity deal, but for ABC and the production company it's a huge money-making venture. They can afford to over-purchase when it comes to construction materials (and a lot of what they have leftover will just get packed up with the rest of the production gear and taken to the next site), but they can't afford to have the entire process held up for a couple hours because someone under-estimated how many 2x4's they'd need for that stage of construction.

Besides, the Amish can raise a barn in a day, with nothing more than simple hand tools. What's so surprising about the idea that, if you throw enough people and resources at it, a house can be built and furnished in under a week?

[–] ctmom 16 years ago

This show seems phony because it is phony. Yes, they build a house in a week. Yes, a deserving family gets a new home. They are building a flippin' CASTLE in SE CT this week, and the crew is HORRID. They were laughing in front of some subcontractors the other day about how awful the town is ... not knowing that one of them actually lives there. These little punks were disparaging the town and saying that they ought to pull down a few more homes while they're at it. Meanwhile, they get paid while over 1,000 volunteers put up a home for a family that they have already raised thousands of dollars for. It may not be an elegant town that they are in, but there are good people there who time and again have come to the aid of others in the community, and they are treating those people like trash. They lost FRIENDS to tragic deaths. Have a heart.

It's all fake ... and insulting. From Ty Pennington's opening running out of a church (after they tried to take the lights off the walls outside because they were too bright for the shot) to the fake candlelight vigil for two dead men (whose names never actually came up) ... to a bunch of actors on flippin' horses doing the whole mideaval thing.

With the mess that they make and the foolish dollars that are spent, they could built one nice, normal house and two more for Habitat for Humanity.

[–] TheSolarSailor 16 years ago

This is nothing but a paycheck for Ty and his crew. They seem phony because they are phony. It's all a bunch of posing for the camera that makes good TV for dumb viewers who don't know any better. I am sure that each family is required to cry their eyes out as that makes for good ratings. I am willing to bet money that they are coached and told to cry as much as possible.

* * * *
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

[–] torential 15 years ago

EMHE came to my home area in southern Minnesota last summer. I grew up with the father of the family that got the makeover. He's a quiet person, not one to hog the spotlight. I know that one of his arms was amputated from a farming accident when he was a boy. I'm confident that the producers first asked him if he wanted to share that information with viewers, and he declined. It was never mentioned in their episode, and that surely could have been exploited for sympathy. Instead, the producers made his wife the focus of the show (and I have never met her).

Is the show scripted? Of course, it's network TV, and the general plot is the same each week. Are the families coached to provide a sob story? I doubt it. They just tell their own stories. I would agree that if a sentimental moment does arise, the EMHE cameras will be there to capture it. I'm also confident the tears are real.

Are the families coached in their reactions? I suspect so. I've been told that certain scenes had to be set up and that the shots had to be retaken for various reasons. So, now you have real people placed in the position of having to act after their genuine initial reactions have passed, and they are not professional actors. Their reactions sometimes come off as being phony because it might be the third time that the director has asked them to look surprised, say. That's what happens when you ask ordinary people to act on a professional stage.

And, yes, the EMHE staff and all of the volunteers really did build the house in one week. The crews worked in shifts literally 24 hours a day for about four days.