Can I be a little controversial? There is a TV show called The Marvellous Miniature Workshop. It should be right up my street - and I really don't like it.
The basic premise is that a skilled modelmaker produces a miniature scene, or building, that brings to life a memory for a member of the public. We watch the skilled (and they are very skilled) modelmaker create something wonderful.
If this was how it worked, I'd be all over the show. After all, there is the excellent Repair Shop, and I'm also keen on Car SOS and Wheeler Dealers, especially the Ed China episodes. But it doesn't.
The producers are obviously keen to invent another Repair Shop, but because they work in tellyland, completely missed the point that makes that show work. Put simply, they fall for the fallacy that a TV show needs a STAR. In The Repair Shop, pretty much everyone involved was unknown at the start. A few series in, all the people working on it (we'll not mention Jay Blades) is a star - because of the wonderful skills they have.
For MMW, there was a budget, so we get SARA COX. Now, I think she is brilliant on the radio, but here, I think shes woefully miscast. The BBC has favourites of the month, and they are shoe-horned into everything. Presumably, SARA COX got the gig because Romesh Ranganathan wasn't available.
Worse, because we have a STAR, she has to be the main focus of the programme. So, we have SARA COX introducing things, talking to the ordinary members of the public over a contrived cup of tea, where they meet the modelmaker. Then, to tell the story, the ordinary members of the public are shown talking to the camera with SARA COX providing voiceover. Cut to the modelmaker with more, slightly patronising SARA COX voiceover. Everything is "made to perfection". Next, SARA COX goes and does some "research" for all of two minutes. Back to a bit of construction, then SARA COX unveils the finished model.
In The Repair Shop, and other shows I mentioned, we follow, and get some understanding of the work being done. Most of the time, it is fascinating. Here, we have a STAR, so the modelmaking is almost an afterthought. The people building models seem perfectly personable, so why not give them more screen time so they can tell us what they are doing?
One reason might be that a lot of processes take a very long time. If it takes five hours to make a floor, then the camera team can't be kept hanging around while someone cuts out bits of wood. In the same episode, the maker produced half-a-dozen tubular steel hospital beds from plastic strip, which will have taken hours, but was covered in a single voiceover line from SARA COX.
Worse, the focus is on the "human interest" story. So, there is a lot of reminiscing, and not a little crying. To me, it's very mawkish, something The Repair Shop keeps to a minimum. But then they know we've come to see skilled people at work. The backstory is kept short.
But these producers don't like skilled people doing interesting work. They have a STAR, who has cost a loads of money, and needs to be used a lot. They also believe that blubbering ordinary members of the public are TV gold.
What the show needs is a spinoff - no SARA COX, no ordinary members of the public, just skilled modelmakers talking us through the work they are doing. OK, it's a harder edit, and you'd probably need them to film themselves, but that's not impossible. It's would be a better representation of the effort that goes into what are real masterpieces.
Maybe I'm just grumpy. Very probably, but I look at the modelmaking, and want to know more. I don't care about the "research" which isn't, and I never want to see people so upset by the current state of the house they loved, and the subject of the model, that they are crying on camera.
Not for me.
