Windy Sydney

I have always been a huge fan of the show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on ABC.

The network takes a design crew (how much of their personal design that goes into the project is definitely questioned in my opinion) and send them to a deserving family that needs a new or re-modeled home. The construction crew and management are always people who volunteer, they just want to make a difference. It's TONS of work, and I can only imagine how difficult it must be to keep a project like that organized and on schedule.

Most of the time they even do more than one house. They will build a home, plus horse stables or huge barns, or even churches. On tonights show they gave a young man who is blind (not to mention an AMAZING musician that belonged to his college's marching band... even though he is also in a wheelchair... ugh, that could totally be taken the wrong way. I know everyone is extremely capable!) and his school a brand new football field, complete with new stadium lights and bleachers.

The people they choose are extremely worthy for this amazing experience. Some are cancer survivors, some run non-profit shelters and animal rescues. There was even a family that adopted special needs children... many of them... and found their house falling apart. These people deserve every good thing that happens to them.

The host of the show, Ty Pennington of Trading Spaces fame, usually picks a room in the new house and designs it as a special secret to both the design crew as well as the public watching the show on television. It's a nice thought, but I have to wave my hands and roll my eyes because it would be nearly impossible to keep a room under construction, with that many people involved in such a short period of time, a secret.

The homes are stuffed with the best furnishings and top of the line appliances, usually from SEARS... they always have product placement in it's spot! They also get gifts like new cars or vacations for the years to come. On one of the first episodes I saw, a young man was given a scholarship to college.

The first couple times I watched the show, they actually showed the design team drawing up the blueprints for the new house on the spot. Sorry, but I have to wave my hands and roll my eyes there as well. If you designed the home from scratch and built it in less than a week the home would never in a million years be done in time. It's stuff like this that is purely for show...

Many of the shots of the design crew running around during the house-build are totally staged. They are all extra-pretty people, with amazing talent and wonderful values. It's just over the top and obvious that they are playing to the camera and not being sincere. Tonight there was a clip of a design team member who "found" that a wall would get in the way of a photo booth she wanted to install in the home. It was almost painful for me to watch, because it was so staged! Almost as if they wanted to "cause" problems to keep the television audience in suspense and thinking, "Oh no! Whatever will they do?!?!" That sounds harsh, I do know they love working on the homes and helping people who deserve it, I just find the delivery of those short clips too sugary-sweet to be real. You can tell they are staged, and written before hand.

Tonight, for example, one of the designers turned to the camera and told the viewing public that she was taking photos for the bedroom that would be for one of the kids. She mentioned that the kid could develop the photos themselves for practice and see how the building process took place. They then cut to several scenes of her taking the photos... crouching by bushes, standing on top of the house, and taking snapshots of the people standing behind the barricades trying to get on television. That, too, sounds harsh... I know they are there to support the family... but you know they also want to be on TV!!!

It just hard to believe their acting... if you could even call it acting. It doesn't seem as if they have taken a class in their lives!

They always show clips of the sugary-sweet design team managing emotionally charged fundraisers to pay of the families mortgage, or the cause that is important to that specific family. It's great, but again... just over the top. I think the show would be a lot better if it wasn't so staged. It's a great thing, but harder to believe every time I see it.

Clips of the design team talking confessional style to the camera are cut into the footage of the build, explaining how deserving the family is. Most of them cry a million times per show, and I am not saying it's not heart-felt... it's just overdone.

At the end of the show, you see a family come home from a vacation (usually a Disney vacation to promote the parks... not sure if ABC owns Disney or Disney owns ABC, but there is a definite relationship there) to see a massive, brand new home they can call their own. I always cry when it comes to this part, I like to see good people being rewarded.

The family has their time in front of the confessional cameras at the end of the show where they all turn to the producer (no doubt) and thank ABC and Sears for their generosity. Again, I am sure they mean it... it's just obvious it's something they have to say.

I guess I am just a little jaded, huh?

No matter what, I am always incredibly humbled by the end of the show. It reminds me that I always have many things to be thankful for, and no matter what happens in my life there will be people out there willing to help me. They might not be willing to build me a brand new home, if I were to ever need one, but it says a lot about the human spirit and shows that deep down we all care about each other.

Everyone is always sobbing by the end of the one-hour or "special" two-hour episodes... me included. I never regret watching the show. We can all hope that we make that kind of difference to a deserving person's life.

Edited to add: I just read this article and I sound like a real bitch! I am not... really...