Reality home makeover show has value

Breeze Perspectives

These days, when you flick on the television during primetime, odds are that you will come across at least one channel featuring its current reality TV show. It doesn’t matter what main network you are watching, you most likely will soon be watching utter garbage. Reality TV is one of the worst things that ever has happened to our society, and very few of the shows that are out today are even worth watching. However, there is one show that I have watched recently which is the complete antithesis of current reality TV.

The show that I’m referring to is ABC’s "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." I’ve only seen it a couple of times, but each time I was stunned at just how much of a difference a TV show could make in the lives of underprivileged or disadvantaged people in our country.

The premise of this show is fairly simple. People who know families that are in harsh or unfortunate circumstances nominate them, and, if they are chosen, the show’s host wakes up the family, informing them that they are going to get a new home. The show then sends them on a week’s vacation, and from there the design team takes over.

Now this is what makes the show so great: The design team and several hundred workers go to work, and their goal is to make the dream of this family come true. They go out of their way to create a new house that not only will improve the quality of life for all of the family members, but also will allow them to live a much more comfortable and stress-free life. The best part about the new house that they build is they custom each different house that usually helps out a handicapped member of the family. For example, one episode featured a family whose parents were both deaf, and one of their two kids was blind and autistic. Factoring that into their blueprints, the design team created a house that made it 10 times easier to live with their respective handicaps. They installed cameras and TV monitors in different rooms so the parents could communicate with each other in different rooms. They also made a special play room for the autistic child, using research from experts to make it perfect. Those are just a few of many things that they do each episode to improve people’s lives.

This new brand of reality TV is something that our society could use as a whole. It’s good, clean, wholesome TV that teaches selflessness and helping others who might not have as much as you or me. On top of that, I would much rather spend an hour in front of a TV watching peoples’ lives change, instead of watching one person try to pick out of a group who he or she will spend the rest of his or her life with. Wouldn’t you?

Travis Clark is a sophomore English major.