My TV Guilty Pleasures

Here is the first part of a series of posts on my TV favourites.

This blog is all about my guilty pleasures currently broadcast on the box an why i enjoy them so much.

Emmerdale

Although some people may take pride in watching this soap opera, it is not a programme with a high amount of viewers of my age.

However there must be a part of me that wants to run away and start up a farm in the countryside as I love catching up with what has been going on while I have been away.

I am not a big fan of the ITV Player as I find it so slow compared to the iPlayer, but even if I could stand the site for long enough, I am not sure I would watch Emmerdale online.

I think the biggest part of the pleasure of this show is my Friday night catch-ups with mum on the sofa finding out what has been going on with the town’s residents.

I am particularly fond of the idea of the farm shop, and the Woolpack

gatherings, simply the whole dying concept of village living that I have never really experienced.

For those cynics of my sanity, I do know that it is all created for the show, but I like the added drama and narrative that only a regular soap can provide, and I am sure I will continue to indulge in the show more often now, whilst I am home for Easter.

Snog Marry Avoid

As a media student, I often ponder how this show fits into the BBC’s remit to: educate, inform and entertain. Yes it may inform people on how to be naturally beautiful and certainly entertains those such as myself who bask in its triviality. But how far will this remit bend?

But don’t mistake these thoughts about the BBC’s motivations for the show as criticism. As for escapism TV I couldn’t think of anything better.

An acquired taste, but a must see for those who observe how people have taken ‘fakery’ the extreme, and chuckle to themselves at orange fake tans, clumpy fake lashes and outfits that look like they haven’t yet got dressed.

POD (personal overhaul device) is witty and cutting and such a giggle.

Shown on BBC3, normally in the late evenings it is a show aimed at the teenage audience, but I know that friends into their 40’s still enjoy a bit of a giggle at the state of the people willing to appear on the show.

Another of my core guilty pleasures.

Take Me Out

Oh Paddy McGuinness makes this show for me. That accent, that cheeky smile and wicked sense of humour make me grin every time.

Again I must bore you for a second with my wonderment on its reflection on dating culture in the UK. The objectification of men is really interesting to me. As well as how women perceive different aspects of the contestant’s life and decide so quickly that they do not want to know any more about him.

Whenever I watch it I think of my dad saying “chuck her a sugar lump and send her home” with reference to one of the women looking like a horse, and it makes me think that maybe these cutting observations are best made behind closed doors and not told to the male contestants so openly.

It’s so cruel, it’s so cutting, and so totally my ultimate guilty pleasure.

A class entertainment for those who want nothing more.

Thank you all for reading :)

Please comment and let me know what your TV guilty pleasures are.

Love Rie

xxx