Well, I don't know that they HAVEN'T failed! I mean, I don't quite see how this series so far can be seen as a SUCCESS, and the opposite of success is, well, you know what it is. To me now, in hindsight, it looks increasingly like the product of a hip, flip, cool, young production team Somewhere In London, which cooked up the idea to have two excitable young things (in Colin's case, at least) swan their way through seven properties and Make A Million. Consider: Two luvvies, one down-to-earth builder bloke; the magic number seven (not 23, 18, or, more realistically, 100); the even more magic number "one million" (shades of Chris Tarrant here); loads of aggro; fantastic end results in terms of the actual design work; fantastic rolling advertisement for Justin and Colin.
The most interesting stories about this programme would be from the behind-the-scenes planning. A story of how the programme was conceived and made, warts and all, would be far more rivetting than the actual episodes. For example, what was the real reason the builder bloke pulled out? Did he just get sick and tired of the two boys throwing their toys out of the pram? I would have jacked it in after the first one if I were him. Why did the producers wait until the episode in which he pulled out to tell us he was off? (Okay, we were given a brief "taster" in the trailer the previous week.)
As these programmes progress through their allotted hour, one can see the producers' - and scriptwriters' - minds at work. All such programmes comprise deliberate peaks and troughs, the most blatant of which currently is the "No Going Back" series on Channel 4. It is almost laughable how one can predict with uncanny accuracy when the next ad break (on ITV/Five/Channel 4) is coming up, as there will be a sudden downturn in the family's fortunes. And then the ads are over, and, magically, the problem is solved! Everything is once again sweetness and light, and the intrepid family are now marching onward and upward on the sunlit uplands of progress... yada yada yada.
Another 15 minutes and boom! Another calamity, another ad break. And to think that there will be many thousands of viewers all lapping it up and nodding sagely into their cardigans, "How brave, how very, very brave..."
MM