TV Critic (3)

Yep, I'm getting through these programmes fairly quickly I think. Although today's, which is 'Four in a Bed' is on fairly continually during the day and early evening - so this one isn't as challenging when talking about the programme. Though actually, what I've noticed instead is that the programme follows a fairly similar journey each week. 

Firstly, let's describe 'Four in a Bed' - there are four families, they all own a B&B style place and they're all being judged on how clean their B&B is. Each family visits each B&B and judges it, checks the room for dust and overall cleanliness and then at the end of their stay they grade everything out of ten. 

There are all sorts of categories - whether their hosts were welcoming, did they sleep well?, how clean it is and then the BIG question at the end, would they stay there again.

Then when the anonymous grading has been done the hosts read through it all - and work out who has scored their room and overall feedback (which the hosts all guess right so I'm not sure why they do this).

This, I think is the programme's downfall. The first B&B that's visited - unless they mess up terribly - tends to get the best scores and is paid the most. As you get onto the second and third places you might find someone has scored another B&B lower, so they're accused of playing games. 

(it should also be said, the winner is judged by how much has been paid rather than the scores, though low scores will probably be an underpayment for the room)

This could be made much easier if the hosts don't get to see scores but still get to see the comments - or maybe if they saw the scores and comments at the same time so there's no accusations of any issues but there's time for them to see what the problems are. 

On saying that, watching them on the final programme of the week (when the hosts find out how much the other contestants think their room is worth and the overall winner is announced) it's always quite weird seeing how they turn against each other. 

There's a new series on Channel 4 at the moment and nothing has changed - I guess if it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing, but I can't help thinking that if the contestants don't see the scores, just the comments it might make for a more truthful experience and less of the "well they scored me low so I'll do the same for them" - though to be fair, I quite enjoy the programme anyway - despite the disagreements. Of which are usually about dust, mucky toilets or dirty showers. 

Disclaimer - for over two years I was a chambermaid back in my teenage days. I would work on a weekend and looking at the things that are being flagged in these B&Bs, I'm glad that nobody judged my cleanliness. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't bad at cleaning - but I can't help thinking I was never THIS clean, so now I'm ashamed. Sorry guests.