User Reviews

First thing is that all of the designs were beautiful and thoughtful. Concept was interesting and at least appeared feasible. However, the show lacked a good structure. A lot of time spent on made up drama's and doing unnecessary 'tests' back at the warehouse. While I love the host as an actress, she added nothing to this show.

Rule number one in TV is treat your audience with respect and don't insult their intelligence. This show does not do that. Cringey over produced set ups that fool no one. Cameras everywhere yet the makeovers are supposed to be a surprise, obviously fake phone calls and equally fake reactions. The interactions between the designers are so badly acted. In fact all of this casts doubt on whether or not these are actually done in 12 hours as they claim. The only saving grace is that the makeovers are actually pretty good so my advice is skip to the 30 mins mark and watch the transformations as everything else is just bad TV. 5 Stars and that's being generous.

The concept is nice. The Vision was there. The execution is lacking. Too much screaming and fake excitement?! I do not know why American reality shows always have soooo much screaming, I mean who likes getting their eardrums burst?

Expected pretty designs but got random cuts back and forth in time instead.

At first I wondered what the team leader (host) actually did. Turns out not much. She was added for her personality I guess as she does add a certain energy.

After a while you notice patterns. Danielle always phones the families at 6:30pm and they always say they're coming home so the crew have to speed up. I think this is added for extra drama. Then there's the little mishaps that happen, some things just seem staged. And one episode they lower a window onto a roof with a ... helicopter! Couldn't they have used a CRANE??!? They much have an endless budget ffs?!

And then there's the actual families and their homes. They don't actually have bad homes, most of them are HUGE and look quite presentable. They often go with the statement "we haven't yet had a chance to decorate etc", but yet the homes look better than most homes! Something doesn't seem right. How about choosing a family living in a really bad house that needs a lot of work to transform? I'm sure they need the help more. As some of the families they chose for this show are actually kind of rich.

Generally I think it's a decent feel good thing which means well but falls a bit short.

Mixed feelings about this one. Host has a certain personality which I do think contributes to the final excitement and emotion of the family once they get to see the finished house.

Parts of the show seem extremely staged and I highly doubt they completed all the jobs in one day. For instance, they've dropped a marble kitchen slab and revealed the chipped corner, that can be clearly seen was already chipped before it dropped. I understand that it might've fallen off camera and they staged it again just to record, but I find this to be highly deceptive and unnecessary. On the other occasion, custom window broke. Supplier said 4-6 weeks for a new one, and then new one magically appears and they reveal the house to the family at 4 pm (according to hosts' Apple Watch), but was initially said that families are out of the house from 7 am - 7 pm. And I highly doubt they've completed all the jobs and got new window and finished 3 hours early.

Also, not that I mind, but all the families were selected based on their 'contribution to the society', and all of them are (coincidentally?) heavily involved in their Church activities, or they own a church, or they give food through church or volunteer at church or something similar.

The "team leader" seems like it's not a thought-though concept. She seems like a cool girl but she doesn't seem to serve a purpose. The staged bits are reaaaallllyyy obvious..like dropping something big and being "shocked". It's happened in several episodes. So the acting is just quite bad. Everyone seems nice though and I like the designs, not like that other show on Netflix where half the show is their kids and every design is the same.

One thing - why did they put the baby in the closet with no window? :D Makes no sense.

A lot of people don't like the host but I love her energy. She is hilarious and adds so much liveliness to an already frenetic set-up. And she does help around. I just watched The One That Got Away and that show's host is more unnecessary than this one. I like how she relates to the family members as well, it's sincere.

I just don't get the 12-hour window. Like why? For innovation purposes? The paint hasn't cured and while everything looks fantastic, I can't help but wonder about the quality.

The guys are all eye candy. So there's that.

I really hate those screaming, over-emotional, dramatic hosts. Danielle brings nothing to the show other than distraction. The show is an interesting premise although you could find more deserving recipients in some cases. And lose the pointless drama. It's not necessary.

First, the houses are a mess because the people bought more than they can afford or simply neglected to do any maintenance on it or had more children than they could support.

So, they get a renovation that is slapped together so badly that it will all fall apart in about in 6 months.

Oh, I can't get over the faked drama. Try harder producers, we can see that you faked it.

And why are all the contestants fundy xians that homeschool? At first, I thought the show was showing us how "deserving" they are of getting a makeover, but then I realized that the show is actually showing us how bad they are at making life decisions.

The show premise itself, is very interesting. Like any remodeling show, there are nice stories and the final product is good. But the host, who has no particular responsibility except from shouting throughout the whole episode, it is too much. She has to tone it down.

People living in pigsty's with a bazillion children screaming and making a mess get a home makeover they probably don't deserve.

I wish I could put zero effort into my filthy lifestyle and then get a show to do it all for me.

The whole team/cast were great. Loved the host's energy and her engagement with the families. The designs they created for each home were beautiful. I hope there will be more seasons.

The host is AWFUL. Soooo over the top, I'd be uncomfortable. I feel like she doesn't help the people doing the renos and she's just there to scream and yell at people that they aren't getting things done quick enough. Really unfortunate because I love love love the designs of the houses. But if there was a 2nd season and they kept the host, I wouldn't watch it lol.

For people getting that big a gift the reactions are so vanilla.. I love these kinda shows, but this one is a bit too fake to get into the emotional side of it. They're nice transformations, but that's it really.

I usually like home improvement shows but not this one There is just a vibe about it that makes me cringe, and it has nothing to do with the host - yes she is a little over the top, but that doesn't bother me at all. What DOES bother me is that everything just seems so fake. Now, to be fair, when I watch shows like this I tend to be most interested in the problems they encounter and how they fix them, or maybe in learning a new way to do something. But you don't get much of that here. What you do get is a lot of frenetic activity with people running around like chickens with their heads cut off, always acting (and it does seem like acting, and bad acting at that) like they are really stressed out because things aren't happening as fast as they should. There are a few places where they go into some small bit of detail about how they did something but that's pretty rare.

Then there are the recipients. I feel like this is just a regurgitation of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" in that the people behind the show feel the need to convince us how deserving the recipients are. Except that what they think makes a person deserving often is not what a lot of other people would think makes a person deserving. The first show was pretty good in that regard but then after that it went downhill. For example having a lot of kids doesn't necessarily make a family deserving, nor does the fact that they are active in their church. I would personally prefer that they don't try to sell me on why a person or family is deserving; that's not at all why I'm watching the show. But also, when I see church and/or homeschooling plus large families mentioned in the same show, I wonder if this is being made in a LDS area. I get the vibe that this show could have come right out of Salt Lake City. I really don't want or need to know the recipient's religion; it's none of the viewer's business and it should not make a family any more or less deserving. You get the distinct feeling that an atheist with no kids or aging parents who live with them would be completely out of luck for consideration by this show.

I would be really interested to know where this show is made. As others have pointed out, there seems to be no thought given to building permits, the effect on the neighbors or anything like that Also, when things are done in a huge rush like that, you know the house can't really be ready to be lived in. Paint has to dry, adhesives have to set, and the smell of those things would likely be pretty intense for at least a day or so.

Then there is the fact that the family always gets antsy to go home about half an hour to 45 minutes before they are supposed to. Oh, puh-leeze! Once or twice I might believe it, but every show and you know it's staged. We all know that "reality" shows are faked to some degree but this one is so fake they might as well have the host shouting "THIS IS FAKE, PEOPLE!" into a megaphone. I don't doubt that the remodels actually take place, but I do doubt that they are always completed within the 12 hour window (nothing always goes according to plan in real life) and I doubt that most of the "drama" isn't staged. And how is it that they never have complaining or nosy neighbors around?

One final nit, at the start of the show you always see shots of them chucking the family's possessions into boxes, but you don't see any of those possessions come back except maybe a few pictures. So of course I wonder what happens to those items. Is the family left with the task of unpacking them and trying to figure out what goes where? And when they do, does that mean all of the original clutter returns? I hate to point it out, but in most places entering someone's home without their knowledge and removing their possessions is very much frowned upon by law enforcement, but yet you never see the cops show up and ask what is going on (at least not in the episodes I have watched). And yet we are supposed to believe the family has no clue any of this was going to happen. Something just doesn't add up here. In my opinion this show is much too fake to be believable; it's like a bad movie parody of a home improvement show that you might see on the Hallmark Channel. For me personally, there's really just not much to like about this show, and that's not something I would usually say about a show in this genre.

This is a fun show. It moves quickly, but it's fun. The host, Danielle ruins it for me. She's overly dramatic and it feels like she's trying way too hard. I find myself fast forwarding through her scenes. The other members of the team are great! Danielle, however, offers no value to the team or the show.

*** After watching a few more episodes, I find that the design team, though well-intended, don't seem to understand how a family operates within a home. They store all of the families' personal items to make for a nice aesthetic, but the designs won't work when you bring their personal items back. They removed the family room from the home of a family of 11! They forgot to make space for the family to homeschool and didn't bring the homeschool items back into the house. None of the design team have children. This is a flaw in all of their plans.

I like the shows concept . I do not care for the host I feel like she just runs around and screams it's very annoying when everyone is working so hard. I love the rest of the team .

The show has some great reveals, especially with landscape and interior design. Danielle Brooks is charming as hell and does awesome with walking the families through the house and getting emotional. I think where the show falls short is how over the top staged all the drama is. Just about anything with the CSI inspired planning footage is unbearable and I had to fast forward through it after a couple episodes. Every episode is structured exactly the same, which I know is normal for renovation shows, but every episodes has a period where one of the special projects seems impossible and a period where Danielle takes a call where it seems like the family is right around the corner and nothing is done and then it comes together. Are people dumb enough to believe this? I don't think they are. Lose the staged drama and the weird low-light mission nonsense and it could be a much better show.

We love Danielle from OITNB but she is very OTT in this. Clearly the program is so fake, as no way on earth could some of this work be done without a lot of up front work.

One family had a massive house with a brand new minivan and where clearly just to lazy to keep their house up to date so you have to wonder what else influenced the decision to do their house!

A few good design ideas but generally America is so behind the times with renovating and updating homes.