TV Hoarding Shows – A Compare & Contrast
July 1, 2010
Which set of compulsive hoarders do we like best?
I’ve long ago admitted to my addiction to A&E’s Hoarders. What can I say, maybe it makes me feel better about my own housekeeping skills. But there is something fascinating about delving into the pathology that makes people keep old soda cans and diapers.
Clearly I’m not the only one who thinks so.
There are currently 3 popular cable reality series that focus on hoarders. Each has its own spin, but they all exploit…er, examine the phenomenon of compulsive collecting of crap. Let’s take a brief look at all three and you can decide which is best suited to your viewing preferences.
Clean House
The Style Network entry is the longest running of the three as well as the most shallow. They don’t really use the term “compulsive hoarders” and the overall tone is relatively light. Main host Niecy Nash (yeah, the one from Dancing With the Stars) and her team descend upon families whose homes have become battle grounds over clutter.
Nash and Co. have the signature MO of The Yard Sale. They talk people into giving up their crap and sell it all at a big garage sale in order to finance designer Mark Brunetz’s redesign of the home. Nash matches up to the first $1000. After the yard sale, the family goes off to a hotel and the team does its thing, creating an organized, spiffy new space for them.
Clean House Pros:
- - Tone is light
- - Yard sale is a fun idea
- - DIY fans will like the renovations
- - Home is cleaned
Clean House Cons:
- - Families do little of their own work
- - Hoarding is not addressed as an ongoing issue
- - No aftercare
Clean House is Hoarders Lite and the show does nothing to really help the families it portrays. They’re hoarders and they will simply crap up the new space just like they did the old. Clean House is for entertainment only – there is no examination of pathology. The other two shows are far more serious in their approach.
A&E’s Hoarders
This one I’ve discussed before. They choose severe hoarders who are in danger of dire consequences if they don’t get their shit together. A psychologist or other expert comes in and assists an organizer in clearing the house in two days to try and avert whatever disaster is imminent.
In this case, the families or individuals have to agree to the “intervention” and work with the organizers. Much of the show focuses on the frustration felt by the experts, family members and the hoarders themselves over the difficulty of the clean-up process. Once the two days are up, the show is out of there, usually leaving a clean house and sometimes averting [insert name of this week's disaster here]. There is no host or set team, though there is a revolving set of docs and organizers who apparently have signed on with the show. There is also occasional ominous music.
A&E’s Hoarders Pros:
- - These are the worst of the worst hoarders. They appeal to the voyeur in all of us.
- - The title cards clearly label hoarding as a disorder
- - The docs involved provide pretty good analysis of what the hoarder experiences during the clean up
- - Aftercare is provided
A&E’s Hoarders Cons:
- - Makes me want to clean.
- - Two days isn’t enough time to really address the underlying pathology
- - A cleaning team or group of friends/relatives usually does most of the work
- - Aftercare is only funds
Hoarding: Buried Alive
The newest entry into the Hoarding Sweepstakes comes from TLC. I have boundless love for TLC due to many happy hours watching fashion victims get make-overs on What Not to Wear, but I was sceptical of their hoarding show. It seemed like a lot of bandwagon jumping when it debuted last season. I should have had more faith.
Hoarding: Buried Alive features moderate to severe hoarders. Each discusses their own problem and discusses it with a professional of some variety. The pair begins with some sort of activity designed to reveal some of the root causes of the hoarding or some way to change behaviors that lead to hoarding. The show is far more slowly paced and focused on the individual and why they hoard as well as how they can get better. Each person featured has sought help, usually without the intervention of family or friends.
Hoarding: Buried Alive Pros:
- - Hoarder does most if not all of their own cleaning and discarding
- - Clearly addresses pathology on an individual basis
- - Allows adequate time for the individual to make changes
- - Care appears to be ongoing
Hoarding: Buried Alive Cons:
- - Really makes me want to clean
- - Show is pretty slow paced
- - Not shiny and happy – the disorder is revealed as being painful and intractable
- - Lacks the instant gratification of seeing the whole house de-cluttered
Which show you choose in order to indulge your hoarding watching sort of depends on your mood. Do you want silliness? Go with Clean House. Do you want the thrill of watching really disgusting messes get cleaned up tout suite? Go with A&E’s Hoarders. Want something that is a little less exciting but delves more deeply into the disorder? Try Hoarding: Buried Alive.
It is reality TV – all are exploitative to a degree. But they all also address a problem that is more common than most people think. Every time I see a house with a two car garage that has both cars parked in the driveway I think HOARDER. Come to think of it, every time I look in my basement or my pre-teen’s room I think HOARDER. Exploitation can be fun and educational, too!
So go, indulge in your choice of hoarding shows. I watch all three depending on my mood. Clean House has been around the longest so runs in repeats about 20 hours a day and you have the best chance of catching at random. A&E’s Hoarders is available on Netflix and you can watch some full episodes on the A&E website. Hoarding: Buried Alive has only had a single season of which you can catch occasional reruns. You can buy the DVD or get it through Video on Demand, but it isn’t out on Netflix.
Now I’m going to sit here and fight the urge to clean the bathroom.
Lie to Me – Fox Scores With Tim Roth
June 11, 2010
Would I lie to you? Never!
I love to entire premise of Fox’s Lie to Me. The notion that feelings, intentions, truthfulness and more are all telegraphed by the expressions we make or our body position is not a new idea. But Cal Lightman takes it to a whole new level.
Cal Lightman is embodied by Tim Roth – perfection in casting if ever I’ve seen it. Roth, with his intensity and rumpled general Britishness, makes us believe that he can tell a lie from the truth in the time it takes for the corner of a mouth to twitch or a hand to flutter. His company specializes in providing answers – to the police, the military, some kid off the street, to anyone who has a pressing need to know the truth.
Lightman is joined by Dr. Jillian Foster (Kelli Williams), a long-time associate with plenty of mad lie detector skillz of her own, Eli Loker (Brendan Hines) who’s sort of a nerdy love child throwback and Ria Torres (Monica Raymund), a “natural” with lots to learn and who provides the extra hottie quotient essential to all Fox productions.
Each week, this group solves two mysteries – they detect lies and truths, but far more interesting are the reasons behind them. It isn’t much fun to know that someone is lying if we don’t know why, now is it? Cal Lightman knows that.
First aired as a mid-season replacement in 2009, Lie to Me was picked up for a regular season run in the fall. This second season was rudely interrupted by ten million hours of reality TV from mid-December until last week. Now the show is back and on top of its game. Last weeks “Beat the Devil” is one of the strongest outings yet in the already solid line-up of episodes.
What makes the show fun is mostly Lightman and his lie-detector wackiness. He’s rude and irreverent but he’s a genius and we love him. His supporting players add complexity to the premise, but it’s Roth who carries the load. The show adds in little clips of famous known or suspected liars (seen a whole lot of OJ in there) wearing the same facial expressions or making the same tell-tale movements as our weekly antagonists. I love it!
You can catch Lie to Me on Fox on Monday nights at 7 central. You can also watch full episodes of the most recent installments right on your computer. I love technology.
It isn’t truly necessary to watch from the beginning of the series, but I know I often like to do so. If you want to play catch up with season one, you can stream it instantly on Netflix. Or I suppose you could buy it. There isn’t any way at the moment to get hold of the first half of season 2, so if you’re a completist, you’ll have to wait for the full season DVD.
But I say don’t wait! Play a little catch-up and dive in. It isn’t so serial that you’ll be lost. Lie to Me has not only a great premise but solid acting and well constructed stories to back it up. Plus, it has cool opening credits with a song I like – yes it really is all about me. Sure, it’s all a little far fetched, but what would be the fun if it was all boring reality? Plus, there is not a single D-List celebrity dancing in the whole series. That’s reason enough to watch right there!
New on Netflix – June 1st and Jun 8th
May 31, 2010
Your bi-weekly DVD release list. I’m there for you, dude.
Here we go – round 2 of New on Netflix. Let’s see what’s coming out in the next couple of weeks, shall we?
June 1st
Alice in Wonderland (fantasy, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Wasakowska, directed by Tim Burton) - Netflix and purchase release – DVD and Blu-Ray
Burn Notice – Season 3 (TV, Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar) – Netflix and purchase release – DVD and Blu-Ray
The Red Baron (military drama, Matthias Schweighöfer, Joseph Fiennes, Lena Headey) – Netflix and purchase release – DVD, Blu-Ray and Netflix Instant Streaming
The Stranger (action, Steve Austin, Adam Beach) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
For My Father (foreign language drama, Shredi Jabarin, Hili Yalon) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Netflix Instant Streaming
Small Town Saturday Night (drama, Chris Pine, Shawn Christian) - Netflix and purchase release, DVD
June 8th
Shutter Island (thriller, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, directed by Martin Scorsese) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
From Paris with Love (action, John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys-Myers) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Blu-Ray
Toe to Toe (drama, Louisa Krause, Sonequa Martin) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD and Netflix Instant Streaming
Coach (romance, Hugh Dancy, Liane Balaban) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD
Starstruck (made for TV family, Danielle Campbell, Sterling Knight) – Netflix and purchase release, DVD
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 7 (TV comedy, Larry David, Cheryl Hines) – Purchase release, DVD – Netflix release delayed until July, 2010
Surely there’s something in there you want to see! Or maybe not – it’s a bit of a slow season for DVD releases. Shutter Island is certainly worth a watch and people seemed to love Alice in Wonderland (even if I was creeped out by just the trailers). I’m noticing a little uptick in the number of new releases available for Netflix Instant Streaming. Not a lot, but hopefully signs of good things to come.
Weirdly enough, I feel like watching a movie now…
