# Worst HGTV show ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 29, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260 "2012-09-29T23:11:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/21 "2012-09-30T23:37:52Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > Uh, Trading Spaces was not on HGTV, it was AMC. ::Joey really likes AMC:: ::Joey doesn’t believe AMC would produce or air Trading spaces for several reasons:: ::Joey Wiki’s Trading Spaces and double checks AMC’s wiki page just to be sure:: Not AMC, TLC. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/22 "2012-09-30T23:40:49Z")
Regarding the straw/hay thing, here’s how I remember it. At work we got those big bales in from one of the local farmers and I said “Oh good, people have been waiting for the hay bales” and he said “Straw bales, hay is the green stuff horses eat” Haven’t mixed them up since. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/23 "2012-10-01T00:07:32Z")
I dislike Property Brothers because it’s giving out very dangerous information. Buying a fixer upper and remodeling it into your dream home isn’t easy. You’re putting a lot of trust in a contractor that may screw up the house and take off with the money. Holmes on Homes showed enough horror stories that I’m extremely cautious about renos. It really can bankrupt you. The contractor brother on Property Brothers does nice work. But even he sometimes has to cut corners when unexpected problems eat the budget. What they promise the homeowners doesn’t always get delivered. I much rather see someone buy a fixer upper and gradually get it fixed up. Do a room at a time. Never let a contractor tear up the whole house and hope he fixes it right. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/24 "2012-10-01T00:13:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I dislike Property Brothers because it’s giving out very dangerous information. Trading Spaces did that once also, bugged the crap out of me. One of the designers was hooking up a light and said something along the lines of “I used to be afraid of doing electrical work, but then someone told me that if you hook it up wrong, the breaker will blow when you turn it back on, so I don’t worry about it now” Yeah, there’s a lot of ways to create really dangerous situations that won’t pop the breaker. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/25 "2012-10-01T14:29:26Z")
**Yard Crashers** has sucked ever since Ahmed Hassan left. As I discussed in another thread, **Property Virgins** should really be called **Fuck You, Homebuyer** because the host just loves showing people an awesome house and then telling them they’ll never afford it. Favorites would include **Renovation Realities**. Really shows you how badly things can get screwed up when you try to do it yourself, or at least how hard it can be. Man, there are some couples who should just _not_ do renovations together… ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/26 "2012-10-01T15:58:23Z")
> [@Helena330](#): > > One of the real estate shows with a young British (I think) woman who positively sneered at everything. It was one of those like Real Estate Intervention where the homeowners weren’t able to sell their house (always because it looked like crap and they wanted too much). I think it was another show, though. That woman’s nasty attitude was such a turn-off. Yes, the orange and brown couch from the sixties is revolting, but she doesn’t need to go on and on about how moronic the owners are. The Unsellables, I think? The trouble with this show (which I also strongly dislike) and some others is that there is basically 5 minutes of information to be imparted, and they have to fill 23 minutes of air time (allowing for commercials). So they go over and over the same thing, even repeating footage, first as a teaser for the next segment, and then the actual segment. The ones I really hate are the shows like House Hunters and others in the same vein, where the program finds three houses for them to look at and they have to pick one, as if these are the only three houses in the city. They always seem to be three sucky choices too. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/27 "2012-10-01T16:04:53Z")
Design On A Dime - because that is exactly what that crap looked like; worth a dime. I understand the concept of helping people do things cheaply…not everyone has an extra $75,000 to do a room…but they made things look worse! I have seen better looking places on Hoarders. Although I like the show Designer Star - where they have their reality show contest to choose the next person to have their own show…the winners’ show usually suck big-time and I never watch them. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/28 "2012-10-01T16:22:46Z")
I hated Decorating Cents with Joan Steffend, probably because I couldn’t stand her voice or the cutesy “Trash to Treasure” crap they did. I used to like Mike Holmes before he got so full of himself. Now he has his crew do all the planning and work, and he comes in to get the hugs from the home owners, all wise and benevolent … ugh. Come to think of it, I don’t watch anything in HGTV any more. Not even David Bromstad, who I think is a hoot! ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/29 "2012-10-01T16:38:48Z")
This seems as good of a place as any for my lament: Mrs. Raza and I really, really miss the old shows, like Hometime (with Dean and his lady partner of the year), who would actually show you how to do something yourself. Or Kenneth Brown’s Redesign that would really discuss in detail the reasons for his design decisions. Nowadays, everything is quick-cuts with about 2 seconds to see how the final project came out, with zero detail. Just a lot of hosts thinking their jokes and laughter are amusing. Pretty low on the entertainment scale, and almost in negative territory on the information-you-can-use scale. \ ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/30 "2012-10-01T17:32:32Z")
I don’t care for [Love It or List It](http://www.hgtv.com/love-it-or-list-it/show/index.html). The theory is that one host makes over your house to fix the things you don’t like about it; the other shops for a new house for you, and at the end you decide which is best. It’s presented as a competition between the hosts, and they have phony little arguments. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/31 "2012-10-01T17:39:37Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Not even David Bromstad, who I think is a hoot! I love him too, and the guy who looks sort of hoodlumish and does some almost graffiti tagger designs. I saw him do a hotel room somewhere that was all black and neon and tagging. Not that I want my whole house done like that but it beats blond wood, beige and blah. I remember the first decorating show I watched with any regularity, some blond Canadian lady in the very late 80s and early 90s. She was a professional interior designer and I believe she even mentioned a few times where she got her degree. It was interesting because she showed making the layout board with the colors and swatches, but _damn_ everything was so blandly alike - she would not leave any space for bookshelves unless it was to display maybe a dozen books, a decorative arrangement of little dust-catchers and a kids swimming award type crap. I would love to totally screw with one of the remodel/decorate shows with my need to fond shelving for 5000 books, 2 desktops, a [chase longue seat](http://www.bonluxat.com/a/Tom_Dixon_Bird_Chaise_Longue.html) with a custom wall arm for a 26 inch monitor and space for a hospital table for the keyboard and trackball … and not having the shelf space for books is not an option \ ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/32 "2012-10-01T18:15:07Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > The Unsellables, I think? > > The trouble with this show (which I also strongly dislike) and some others is that there is basically 5 minutes of information to be imparted, and they have to fill 23 minutes of air time (allowing for commercials). So they go over and over the same thing, even repeating footage, first as a teaser for the next segment, and then the actual segment. > > ::snip:: > Roddy That’s it, The Unsellables. Thanks! Can’t stand that woman. Biggirl, I loved the Lina Lamont reference! ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/33 "2012-10-01T22:56:57Z")
I’m glad somebody got it, **Helena**! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/34 "2012-10-02T02:10:05Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > I can’t abide Homes by Holmes. I know it’s a very popular show, but he really grates on my nerves. Yeah, yeah, finger in the toilet… ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/35 "2012-10-02T02:43:40Z")
The early Homes by Holmes were pretty good for giving the viewer some education about how things were built wrong and how to build them right. Later on they took on bigger and bigger projects and became typical HGTV porn where you just watch the workers tear everything down and rebuild it without learning anything. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/36 "2012-10-02T03:14:32Z")
I think it was design on a dime that would blatantly cheat every week. “We found these two perfect Louis XVI chairs in the basement to complement our design” and not include the value of the chairs in the grand they are supposed to have spent. It got so bad my wife and I decided that before they tackled a project they would stash shit in the homeowner’s garage so they could “discover it” and use it in the show. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/37 "2012-10-02T03:23:27Z")
There was one show I swear was racist. I think it was “Our First Place” or something like that. Whenever a white family would buy a house the show would decorate a living room or a bedroom-- with tvs or beds, respectively. A non-white couple, otoh, would get something like a tiny table for the kithen. Or blinds. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/38 "2012-10-02T03:29:41Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I remember the first decorating show I watched with any regularity, some blond Canadian lady in the very late 80s and early 90s. She was a professional interior designer and I believe she even mentioned a few times where she got her degree. It was interesting because she showed making the layout board with the colors and swatches, but _damn_ everything was so blandly alike - she would not leave any space for bookshelves unless it was to display maybe a dozen books, a decorative arrangement of little dust-catchers and a kids swimming award type crap. [Candice Olson](http://www.candiceolson.com/)? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/39 "2012-10-02T10:47:46Z")
I don’t think it’s Candice. I think it’s, um, I forgot her name. She had many shows, starting with a decorative painting show way back in the mists of time and ending with a big deal while-you-were-away type dealies. I liked her a lot. She was funny and snarky and had an English accent. She was all over HGTV and then, a few years ago, she disappeared. To be replaced by Candice as the main, tall, blonde designer. I think her first name was Debbie. ETA: Debbie Travis! ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260/40 "2012-10-02T10:49:57Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > It’s presented as a competition between the hosts, and they have phony little arguments. :rolleyes: I agree. The staged fights, and the British woman’s attitude, are really off putting. Besides, I don’t really understand the concept. If I have an extra $50k sitting around, I’m going to use it as a downpayment on my next home OR I’m going to renovate my existing house. I’m not going to spend $50k to renovate my existing home, then move. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-hgtv-show-ever/636260.md?page=3)