Dirty Rotten Cheater
- TV Series
- 2007–
- 45m
YOUR RATING
Photos
Storyline
Featured review
Concept had potential to be a tense pressure cooker but the delivery is smug, bland and very "daytime television"
Five contestants face questions that have been already put to the studio audience. In a reversal of Family Fortunes it is the answer that the fewest members of the public picked that wins you the most points, the most popular of obvious getting to the least. One of the five contestants is cheating though and can see the breakdown of answers and thus should be able to storm into the lead. Of course all five contestants have to identify the cheater in their midst while the cheater has to remain hidden to avoid elimination.
I open this review with a sentence that proves to me that sadly I am getting older: when I was younger television used to shut down at night with a quick burst of the national anthem and the country shuffled off to bed chuckling to themselves about American with all her channels but yet nothing on. Fifteen years later I find myself in the world of endless digital channels, with lots of "+1" channels and reality programmes up the wazoo. Hell, last week I discovered several channels where women just sit silently on screen in drab rooms waiting for viewers to call them (at £1.50 per minute of course)! Anyway, the point of this ramble is that there is loads of time to fill across loads of channels and repeats will only get you so far, so instead what we get are "re-inventions" of shows and types of shows that have proved popular in the recent past. It is this that moved the BBC to purchase the format of Dirty Rotten Cheater from the US and drop it into a daytime slot with no specific ambition for it.
The idea is not without potential and in some of the episodes I watched it was interesting to try and work out who was lying. However in practice it is much less interesting than it should be because the structure and delivery here prevents real intrigue. We skim through the questions and the host does very little other than make small talk. Personally I would have liked a much less friendly atmosphere to genuinely put pressure on the people. Instead we get a standard daytime game show feel where the host is smarmy and the contestants are either retired or exhibitionists; regardless which they are the producers still expects them to talk like camp attention seekers which is amusing when it is working class blokes. However this approach does mean that it is only the idiots that give it up with any ease. Indeed even the best games are deadened by the soulless and uninspiring delivery.
Conley is a jobbing presenter for this type of stuff and unfortunately he was an obvious choice for this. I would have preferred if someone had thought for a moment and gone for someone more effective within the idea of the show. Surely Conley can smooze with any Joe Public but all his delivery does is suck out whatever small amount of tension and intrigue there may have been. It is a real shame because you can see how the concept could have been a real pressure cooker but all it turns out to be is yet another daytime game show that only aspires to fit in with the crowd.
I open this review with a sentence that proves to me that sadly I am getting older: when I was younger television used to shut down at night with a quick burst of the national anthem and the country shuffled off to bed chuckling to themselves about American with all her channels but yet nothing on. Fifteen years later I find myself in the world of endless digital channels, with lots of "+1" channels and reality programmes up the wazoo. Hell, last week I discovered several channels where women just sit silently on screen in drab rooms waiting for viewers to call them (at £1.50 per minute of course)! Anyway, the point of this ramble is that there is loads of time to fill across loads of channels and repeats will only get you so far, so instead what we get are "re-inventions" of shows and types of shows that have proved popular in the recent past. It is this that moved the BBC to purchase the format of Dirty Rotten Cheater from the US and drop it into a daytime slot with no specific ambition for it.
The idea is not without potential and in some of the episodes I watched it was interesting to try and work out who was lying. However in practice it is much less interesting than it should be because the structure and delivery here prevents real intrigue. We skim through the questions and the host does very little other than make small talk. Personally I would have liked a much less friendly atmosphere to genuinely put pressure on the people. Instead we get a standard daytime game show feel where the host is smarmy and the contestants are either retired or exhibitionists; regardless which they are the producers still expects them to talk like camp attention seekers which is amusing when it is working class blokes. However this approach does mean that it is only the idiots that give it up with any ease. Indeed even the best games are deadened by the soulless and uninspiring delivery.
Conley is a jobbing presenter for this type of stuff and unfortunately he was an obvious choice for this. I would have preferred if someone had thought for a moment and gone for someone more effective within the idea of the show. Surely Conley can smooze with any Joe Public but all his delivery does is suck out whatever small amount of tension and intrigue there may have been. It is a real shame because you can see how the concept could have been a real pressure cooker but all it turns out to be is yet another daytime game show that only aspires to fit in with the crowd.
- bob the moo
- Dec 3, 2007
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime45 minutes
- Color
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