Bak's TV Week: Only In America

"Wanna sneak into the bathroom?" croaks a wizened old hag at a man half her age in the middle of a crowded restaurant. And you can tell by her creepy leer and the grim twinkle in her mad, mad eyes that it's not just because her colostomy bag needs changing either.

 

Meet Danielle, titular star of the weird and frankly terrifying world of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Channel 4's latest US import.

 

Danielle is 45, with the face of a grandma and the mental age of an adolescent teen. She's deep of voice, frozen of features and has eyebrows so badly Botoxed they're practically vertical. She's the American Dream. In many ways Danielle brings to mind Fiona Phillips doing her turn as Christina Aguileraon Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes a few years back. Remember that? No? Erased it from your memory did you? Well lucky you.

 

The Real Housewives of New Jersey follows the exploits of Danielle and her 'friends' Jacqueline, Dina, Caroline and Teresa, a gaggle of rich bitches who appear to spend their entire lives doing the following:

 

1) Having their hair done. 2) Having their faces done. 3) Forcing their demonic offspring into either stage or beauty school. And 4) Bitching about each other behind each other's backs.

 

Were you to strip this gaggle of materialistic horrors of their expensive accoutrements and cosmetic treatments and drop them in Newcastle city centre on a Saturday night, your average passer-by would probably assume they were just another skanky hen party.

 

Danielle is easily the most interesting housewife on the show, but mad cat-woman Dina runs her pretty close. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, Dina looks like she might have been quite pretty once upon a time. Around 200 BC I'd reckon, before Botox came along and gave her the look of a furious showroom dummy.

 

She's the kind of rich bitch who gets to wander around her mansion saying things like: "This is my favourite bathroom in the whole… house." How the other half live, eh?

 

 

Desperate Housewives

This week Dina hired a personal assistant, a nervous wreck of a lad young enough to be her great-grandson.

 

The poor sap agreed to bathe her cats, take her cars to the car wash (he can't drive) and buy tampons for her. All this before she asked if he would accept "other forms of payment" in the highly unlikely event that she found herself a bit short of cash. The kid looked like he didn't know whether to play with himself or cry. Or both.

 

Dina hates Danielle, but between them stands mutual friend Jacqueline, a pointless wet blanket of a woman whose doctor describes her four consecutive miscarriages as "really really bad luck." I call it natural selection. Jacqueline already has a spoilt brat of a daughter, Ashley, who looks exactly her mother except that she's capable of conveying emotion through facial expressions.

 

Making up what is sinisterly known as 'the group' are Teresa and Caroline. Teresa is one of those horrible pushy American 'moms' who lives her life vicariously through her seven-year-old brat, forcing her into pageants and making her audition to star in a movie with The Rock. Such lofty ambitions.

 

Caroline, meanwhile, fancies herself as some sort of group matriarch though her qualifications appear to begin and end with the fact that she looks like a fat grandma and likes to cook. This, dear reader, is what passes for normality in the Land of the Free.

 

The Munch Bunch

 

Channel 4 has always been highly adept at spotting gaps in the schedules and filling them with original, thought-provoking programming. But you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you had the misfortune to tune into The Big Food Fight, a new 'comedy' panel show not to be confused with Ramsay, Oliver and Fearnley-Whittingstall's evangelical series of the same name.

 

You know what I thought when I tuned in? Oh good, I thought, another TV show about food. Because we don't have enough of those already. A brief scan of this week's schedules reveals the following: Jamie's American Road Trip, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA, Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers, Saturday Kitchen, Economy Gastronomy, Virgin Cooks, Caribbean Food Made Easy and Eat Your Own S**t. Oh alright, I made the last one up, but you get the general idea.

 

The Big Food Fight isn't as good as any of these programmes. No, not even Jamie's American Road Trip. It's a little bit QI, and a little bit A Question of Sport. But with food. A Question of Food, if you will. But, god help it, it's not even as funny as that and, let's face it, A Question of Sport was about as funny as being punched in the face by Steven Gerrard because you won't pway his favouwite Tinchy Stwyder CD. Boo hoo hoo.

It's hosted by Sue Perkins whose chirpy demeanour and terrible jokes appear to have been dragged kicking and screaming from The Mel and Sue Tour, circa 1998. "Does it not bother you that their food is served in a bucket?" she deadpans, throwing originality to the wind with this well-worn (and still not funny) joke about KFC. The bucket seems like a suitable place for Sue's career right about now.

 

Joining her on this rollercoaster ride to comedy oblivion is a bored-looking Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who has the hangdog look of a man who wishes he was anywhere but sat next to Charlotte Church as she attempts to name 10 dishes from her local Chinese takeaway.

 

Meanwhile Saturday Kitchen sleaze James Martin spends the entire show metaphorically rubbing his thighs – Vic Reeves style – in the direction of team-mate Ching-He Huang, thus cementing his reputation as TV's most repellent celebrity chef. Ching-He's sole contribution is to simper a bit and name seven vegetables that are traditionally served with an English roast dinner. Yes, it's really that bad.

 

Come on, Channel 4, your public deserves better. We have the BBC for this kind of unfettered rubbish. We have ITV daytime for Sue Perkins. We have Dave for repeats of A Question of Sport (yes I know it's not on Dave, but it's only a matter of time).

 

If you're going to force a show called The Big Food Fight on us, at least make sure it contains actual fighting, ideally in gravy, and with naked women if you must insist on maintaining such a consistently low tone. In poor taste it might be, but at least it would be funny.

 

Quotes Of The Week

 

"I picture me in her basement putting lotion on." - Rival New Jersey housewives Dina and Danielle have an unusual relationship.

 

"I'm wearing my fertility bracelet." - It might be easier if you just find someone mad enough to have sex with you, Jacqueline.

 

"Young men are really attracted to me. I guess it's my appearance of youth." - Danielle must keep a portrait of a much younger woman in her attic.

 

"It's basically food meets bondage: M&S meets S&M." - There's a place in hell for Sue Perkins and her comedy routine.

 

"I'm a dreadful tin opener." - And an even worse singer, Charlotte Church.

 

"It's from a well-known chicken restaurant." - Sue Perkins: master of the subtle quiz clue.

Bak On TV

Read more of Stuart Bak's TV reviews in our Couch Potato archive. Do you agree with Stu's opinions? Disagree? Drop him a line on bakontv@hotmail.co.uk