Writing By Laura

Since my accident my parents and I have kind of changed our TV viewing habits a bit to include a fair bit of guilty pleasures. Here is a list of our current TV guilty pleasures (in no particular order).

(Airs on The CW)

Family Feud

As I alluded to in my first post, we watch Family Feud hosted by Steve Harvey. I had never really watched it before until recently. While I of course knew the game since it’s been around in some version forever I’d never really sat down and watched it. This version is pretty low brow as there’s plenty of sex jokes and potty humor. My Mom looks at me confused a lot and there are some times that I just refuse to explain things further because it would be too uncomfortable 😣 and cross too many lines (like I mentioned before). However, this show is easy to watch while we’re eating supper on our little TV trays in front of the TV (we’re adorable/pathetic).

(Airs on The Food Network)

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

Guy Fieri is one of those people that seems to uniquely exist for entertainment purposes. His spikey bleached hair, his sunglasses he always wears backwards on the back of his head (does he have really light sensitive eyes 👀 on the back of his head?) his oddly half bleached facial hair and his kind of loud personality seem to exist chiefly so he’s memorable on TV. But you can’t deny that the guy is likable. So he went from appearing around 10 years ago on the channel’s reality competition show “The Next Food Network Star” to winning that show and practically becoming the unofficial personality of the network. Triple D (as his trademark show is known among Fieri and fans) is incredibly watchable. Fieri eats his way across the country going to recommended food joints along the way and meeting and cooking along side the chefs. It’s fun and easy to watch and we’ve actually discovered some new local restaurants by watching it.

(Airs on The Food Network)

Guy’s Grocery Games

Another Guy Fieri Food Network show. This one is a reality cooking competition show where he serves as host. The judges and contestants you can tell have a good time so it makes it fun. It has goofy games and doesn’t take itself too seriously which is good because the network already has a juggernaut cooking competition show that’s much more serious (see Chopped below).

(Airs on The Food Network)

Chopped

Another reality food show cooking competition. It’s much more serious than Guy’s Grocery Games and the contestants and judges seem to really take it seriously. This one actually has a good reputation in the industry so it seems contestants clamor to be on the show not just for 15 minutes of fame but to make a name for themselves in their industry. The judges are also top tier so it really makes for a fun viewing experience.

(Airs on HGTV)

Property Brothers

Twin brothers from Canada (one a realtor and one a contractor) convince a couple (usually) to buy and renovate a fixer upper in order to get what they want in a home they can afford. In the beginning the show operated as if the fixer upper idea was sprung on the couple and the brothers started the show by showing the couple a really nicely renovated home they couldn’t afford to convince them they could do something similar for a fraction of the cost if they bought a fixer upper. The couple was always hoodwinked and surprised that the home was so expensive, etc. It just irritated me especially as the show became more popular. It became more unbelievable that these people didn’t know the fixer upper premise of this pretty popular show. They still show them the done home but tell them upfront that it’s way over budget and they can achieve something similar on their budget if they do a fixer upper. The brothers are charming and I secretly want them to come make over a house for me.

(Airs on The Food Network)

Beat Bobby Flay

Bobby Flay is one of those celebrity chefs who has been around since the beginning of The Food Network. And he’s good (and knows it). He has a very clear style (Southwestern) that he seems able to adjust it and use it to his advantage. However, as I said the dude knows he’s good. There are some careers that seem to really attract cocky narcissists and the culinary field is definitely one. Especially chefs (a cocky baker is harder to find although I’m sure they exist). Bobby is very definitely an egotistical narcissistic chef. And a good example of that is that he seems to have or compete in a lot of competition shows. All to prove he’s the best. He’s competed on Iron Chef (the original), Iron Chef America (where he’s an Iron Chef), Chopped (where they structured a whole string of shows all based around competitors getting to win to compete against him) and of course Beat Bobby Flay. And I’m sure I’m missing some. But this show is a good time in spite of its narcissistic core. It starts with 2 competitors competing for the chance to Beat Bobby Flay. They are charged with making a dish featuring a special ingredient of Bobby’s choosing. Then 2 celebrity judges decide who won. The winner competes against Bobby where they cook the competitor’s signature dish (so Bobby is presumably at a disadvantage since he is Goliath to the competitors David- see the narcissism?). They then have a panel of impartial judges do a blind taste test and vote who won. Did the competitor in fact beat Bobby Flay?

(Airs on HGTV)

House Hunters

The premise is that a couple or person is looking for a home to buy (or rent if it’s House Hunters International) and the show follows them while they look at 3 homes (usually with a realtor) and then decide on one. Sometimes the show shows if they’ve made considerable changes other times they’ve barely hung a picture. I have fun trying to guess which house they’ll pick.

Well as you may have guessed from the length of this post we have a lot of guilty pleasures (and I haven’t mentioned them all)!

You may have noticed a trend. No scripted TV. That’s on purpose. We watch scripted TV but these guilty pleasures are ones we watch gathered around TV trays eating supper. And since I have a severe hearing loss since my accident it makes it easier for eating if we don’t watch scripted TV while we eat since now I truly have to watch the TV (to read the closed captioning) when I’m watching it to know what’s happening. My parents have been sweet and humor me and let me watch what I want (but I think they like my choices OK 👌🏻).