General Chat

Just stirring you Rose - although if I'm honest I was a little offended. I definately don't watch the real life hospital shows - we have one over here that is so depressing. A lot of people must watch reality programs or they wouldn't get the ratings. Some I don't like and some are pure entertainment like Dancing on Ice and the like. The shows that hammer home the dark side of life are definately not entertaining for me but each to their own.

Sue :P

Program/me shmowgram/me what does it matter? Same thing.

Andy Warhol was right and an awful lot of people clamour for their 15 minutes worth. Nothing voyeuristic or intrusive about it. We all have a 'no' button.

The finding family show is so formulaic it is like watching repeats. I've seen three episodes, the first out of interest and two more because I was either busy knitting or too pooped/lazy to switch channels.

I didn't find it at all voyeuristic as there was not enough of the seekers stories to render it so. they were simply slotted in the gaps of Davina and Nickys air time.

I see it as nothing more than a vehicle for Ms McCall and I do hope they vary the 'photo reveal' from time to time otherwise I'd think it was the same bit of footage. It really is like painting by numbers. =I

SueMaid, you posted while I was typing....no I am not speaking about Casualty, Holby city and the like...drama, I mean real patients, in real hospitals, being prodded and operated on and lying with tubes in them...yes they and family must give permission to be filmed, but I don't find it 'necessary' to have that as entertainment for 'strangers'.

SueMaid :-) I am sure you know I didn't intend to offend, or suggest people can't tell the difference between what is 'real' and the 'edited version' ( though some do believe the soaps are real you know! lol) nor that watching Corrie or anything other than 'serious' programmes shows a lack of intellect, I was bought up watching Corrie ( Peyton Place first?).

I do personally feel there is something a bit worrying about enjoying 'real life' hospital programmes, they are by their nature, intrusive at a time when most people don't need that, people's struggle with illness is not something that is helped by having an audience imo maybe I feel like that because of my experience of the lack of dignity some patients experience, and that without a camera and sound man in the room?

My apologies if I offended anyone, I shall go and watch 'Homes under the hammer', not in the least 'elitist' :-)

Don't know about that show 'cos we haven't got it yet but Casualty has just come on and I'm watching that.....which means I'm a hypochondriac, suffering from Munchausen by proxy or a frustrated doctor/nurse =I

Sue

I dare anyone to say they enjoyed the programme!!!!!!

GinaS

I haven't watched it either and for many of the above reasons but include the fact that I have enough trauma in my own life thanks!


Whilst I love the thought of families being reunited on a mutually happy basis, the 'hype' given to this programme made me uncomfortable - even the adverts for it made me cringe.



It smacks very much of playing on people's emotions plus bringing in cash for GR's coffers!



Why are there so many programmes around where the producers want people to be reduced to tears all the time?



Give me a good quality comedy show instead - and there aren't many of those around....... :D



Cx

I haven't watched it either, Rose - I might enjoy it if I did but reunions on telly make me cringe tbh

"Voyeurism of the worst possible kind I think, suitable watching for hypochondriacs, those with Munchausens by proxy, and those who would have been a Dr/ nurse...if only...."

Rose - you know I respect much of what you say but many people - some of them even intelligent - watch these shows and shows like this for entertainment. Not everyone believes everything that happens in these programmes just as not everyone believes in the plots of soapies but we still watch'em. I love Corrie - unreservedly and unashamedly :P

Sue

Ok I'll withdraw the fattist bit :D but they surely could have had a more flattering shot .

Basically its the same program each week ,only the names have been changed,I still dont like it. too much like Surprise Surprise Yuk !

Bring back Heir hunters, at least that was interesting !

well whilst i don't feel weight has anything to do with it , I guarantee you will not see any reunions in a homeless hostel between someone living rough on the streets and the family he hasn't seen for 10 years since he hit the bottle..... sober now or otherwise.

No 'fly on the wall' tv programme is unedited, it is cut and recut for maximum effect , twas ever thus right back to the 70s when 'The Family' was one of the first, ditto 'seven up' and subsequent '14/21 up'... etc

I can critique every hospital programme based on one..it's going to be births, deaths, operations and exhausted nurses looking worried, and patients in pain, with relatives pacing corridors... and the obligatory child hanging on by a thread . Voyeurism of the worst possible kind I think, suitable watching for hypochondriacs, those with Munchausens by proxy, and those who would have been a Dr/ nurse...if only....

Ditto 'road wars' 'police camera action' LOL I gave son a potted version of a half hour show in 2 minutes this evening when he turned one of them on, though I say it myself my version was much more entertaining ;-)

Now I ask , are they genuinely looking for a relative or just wanting their 15 minutes of fame on TV on the back of watching this series ?

{ I can tell you a day of filming for channel 4 was probably one of the most exhausting days ever, !}

Egg zactly.

And check out how precisely NO help or guidance they are getting from the site management for their money.

There are places all over the internet where these kinds of notices can be placed for free. In the UK, I believe "missing you" is probably the biggest site, and it seems to be much more ... coherent.

Mind, I still don't agree that anyone should be publishing allegations of unwed parenthood, adultery, family abandonment, etc., about unsuspecting third parties. Some of the stories may not even be true, and even if they are, there are a lot of other people who could be hurt by the publication who are not given a thought.

People can search for their missing parents / children / whatever without specifying the relationship, let alone going into all the details of how it came about or broke down.

Check out the number of first time posters on FLR who have forked out for membership in the hope of a reunion.?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0U66s5WEs0

It's not like the idea is original.

When I said "Call it tabloid television, call it reality television -- it's cheap to produce and it pays big dividends for sponsors in this case" perhaps it wasn't as obvious as it was that I was talking about all shows of the genre.

Will that do?

I haven't seen it but I know what it's about.

I described a case I know personally in a thread here a little while back. A family reunion held on television -- the 60 Minutes show in the US. The missing family member was the youngest child in a family I knew well: the family of the man I was living with at the time.

So I'm not totally clueless, and this particular show is not the first or only one that has ever trod this ground.

Wish I could critique a programme I'd never seen...........


TBH, a lot of TV is done on the cheap - 'Grimefighters', 'The Only Way is Essex', My Big Fat Gipsy Wedding, 'One Born Every Minute' and all those other progs about hospitals and the police, to name but a few.

critique please....

"Its not a show, its a programe"

Forgive me if the difference eludes me.

Television show = television program, or programme, if you prefer.

I'm not especially interested in having my dialect critiqued by someone who happens to speak a different one, thanks all the same.

"Live audience" had nothing to do with my point. The audience is the viewers. Or have I got that wrong too? I'll have to tell Nielsen, with its "audience share" numbers.

The dross that barrel-bottom talk shows dole (or do we say doll?) out appeals to the voyeur and the judgmental in their audience. I think the difference here may be one of degree.

Call it tabloid television, call it reality television -- it's cheap to produce and it pays big dividends for sponsors in this case.

And sorry, but that's my opinion. This is simply a marketing vehicle.

All commercial television and radio are. The broadcaster is paid by the sponsor to deliver the sponsor's target clientele to see/hear the sponsor's commercial content. The program content is just the hook.

This just strikes me as a particularly blatant example.

To be fair, it does give inklings of how they find the person. Tonight for instance, they found 20 Patrick Lewises, but only one was of the right age.
Have to admit I watch it because of the 'could have been' /could be in the future factor.
After my daughter's father & I split up, I stayed in Hampshire, he moved to Dorset. To give him his due, he came every other Friday tto pick them up. Then, when they were in their teens, he moved to Essex, (strangely where they were born) and still lives there. However, we (yes me included) still meet up regularly - even though one daughter now lives in Brighton.
My daughters are also still in contact with their stepbrothers from when their father was married to their mother - ex and second wife haven't been together for over 15 years!

My grandaughter has a different father to the half brothers she lives with - and her real father also has a son - her 'other' half brother.
She visits him regularly - and her 'live in' half brothers play with him.
9 year old grand daughter also regularly sees - and is bestest friends with the 12 year old daughter (not ex's) of my ex's current partner!

Is this odd, or is it because we (our family) believe children are innocent when it comes to the foibles of adults?

It would only have taken me and my daughter to have 'taken a stand' for 3 children to lose contact with their real fathers, and in the case of my grandaughter a half brother (pain in the neck though he is at the moment! LOL) as well.