Pimp My Extreme Make-Over Home, And Throw Some Dr. Phil Stank On It!!

Tonight Fox debut its new show RENOVATE MY FAMILY, hosted by Dr. Phil’s son. I’m sure he has a name, but for the sake of saying what I’m sure he hates to hear, he will forever be referred to only as “Dr. Phil’s Son” or a derrivative thereof.

Fox has taken an undeserving family who, for whatever reason, they seem to think America is fond of and given them the chance of a lifetime. New home, new clothes, and gave their dog a bath. All that and the told the BIGGINS family that all but one of them was obese. Hold please…I need a moment to clear my throat, for I am choking on irony.

What was a poorly produced, poorly cast, poorly edited night of television, did have a limited few good moments.

For the good, the bad, and the spawn of Dr. Phil….keep reading after the jump.THE GOOD

Though as you will read, the show is mainly craptacular, there were some elements that made it worth watching.

First, the men of the family. Zekia, Omar and the dad Anthony are level headed, caring, sharing wonderful men. Anthony sweats love on and caring, something which has clearly rubbed off onto his sons Zekia and Omar. Anthony is a hard working man who supports a full family of five plus a dog. Watching these men get the opportunity of a lifetime would have been so wonderful if not for the screaming banshees that were the women.

After being berated and talked down to on the national television network that is FOX, Anthony still had nothing but wonderful things to say about his puffy wife. Even building a bench to reenact his proposal to her bloated, waterbed ass. Fancy shmancey bling bling of a ring included (do I need to tell you she lost the first two wedding rings he gave her?) Did she reply with tears, kisses and hugs. NO! Instead she, accusingly and unplayfully, accused him of lying about building the bench then went on to demand he tell her how much the ring cost and couldn’t believe him that the ring was real. Ahh, that’s love. I was just wondering why Dr. Phils son couldn’t renovate this family and bitch slap some sense into this woman.

Which brings me to my next positive about the show. Dr. Phil’s son, sans bitch slapping, pointed out the way she mistreats her husband which cause her to finally show emotion over something other than her shows being thrown out. She genuinely seemed embarrassed to have her flaws pointed out publicly. Certainly she seemed to feel no remorse over being a pool of lemon juice to Anthony’s open wound of marriage, but she didn’t like having it pointed out. So she apologized.

The house. Ok, beyond the men of the family, I hate to give props to the show, but the house they built it 7 days was pretty amazing. Extreme Make-Over Home Edition has got their competition out there with this crew. They didn’t just build a house in a week, they built a truly incredible house, by anyone’s standards in one week. Toss a talking snake an apple tree and some naked couple in the mix, and it would have been damn biblical work!

That about does it for the good… but it may be worth mentioning, part of the design team are three blonde triplets who used to be bikini models.

Ok, now that does it for the good.

THE BAD

Dr. Phil’s Seed. Wow. I don’t know what the hell this kid is doing in show business. He’s so bland he makes his dad look exciting. He served little to no purpose on the show, acting as somewhat of a host and something of a participant.

Reality hosts tend to have a moderate aura of condescension, a glow of indifference and a voice that could make Stone Phillips proud. Dr. Phil’s seeding however, was scared, insecure jittery with a stank of confusion. I don’t fault him, I just think in a hasty decision to get someone, who’s got a dad, who knows Oprah, they wound up hiring youth and inexperience to host a multi-million dollar network show. He was just in over his head and Fox didn’t know what to do with him. He was the voice-over guy, the let-the-family-know-they-got-guy, and at one point he seemed to even be a builder guy. His use was something of a mess.

Also a mess, was the general format of the show. in 120 minutes (88 w/o commercials) it was a daunting task to show the family before, give them the surprise they were selected, watch them pack, watch them demolish the home, hear their “interviews”, meet the design team, watch the family get their health check, and their results, and their reactions to it, and the design teams construction of the foundation, the framing of the first floor, the framing of the second floor, penis (just seeing if you were still reading this), the walls going up, the design of the interior, exterior, the family makeover, the father asking the mother to marry him again (and I am skipping a lot), the big reveal with the family and their new looks, the reveal to the family of the new house then a room by room walk through of their new home and their post show interviews. All this and have the cutest footage of their dogs nails getting painted. I mean, my fingers are bleeding just typing all this.

Jamming this all into one episode is chaos. And Fox, in their rush to get it on the air, really missed the boat. There was too much going on and no one to guide us. I assume Dr. Phil’s man-juice baby was supposed to be the one hosting us through the event, but he was being interviewed at points to give us his take on what was happening just like the family was, he even got into a fight with the design team about what was going where and how it would be done. I am still confused what his background experience and credibility is as a TV host, now he’s a designer?! Uggh. I could break the Divinci Code faster than I could get through this thing again.

Then there were the women of the show. To be honest, I’m just too emotionally drained. I can’t do it, I just can’t. so Ill just let the photo of the wife say it all.

For a more disserving family, with a new host and a cleaner format RENOVATE MY FAMILY could be an amazing show. But keeping things the way they are, I predict HUGE numbers on tonight’s show, strong showing over the next 2 weeks, then as newer shows debut the ratings will trickle to a halt. I don’t foresee this series outliving the already overpopulated and more successful preexisting shows within the home make-over genre.