Thursday, November 08, 2007
Streets ahead
DATING! Streetmate, ITV2, 9.00pm Labels: ITV2, Streetmate, TV
Perhaps this is just the telltale signs of our old age, but we can't remember if we've already written about this one or not. We know we wrote about it a few months ago by accident, having got it confused with Holly and Fearne Go Dating (two shows about dating, both on same broadcaster, both presented by Holly Willoughby - easy mistake, obviously. The sort of thing that could've happened to anyone. *cough*) but we had to erase that when we realised our error, and we don't remember ever getting around to "doing" this properly, so here we go, in the great spirit of better-late-than-never.
The original Streetmate was a personal favourite of ours, back in the days when it was on Channel 4 on Friday nights, presented by a pre-shouty Davina McCall, legging it around the streets of our great nation in the hopes of matching two singletons and helping them find love through the redemptive power of early examples of reality television. But as all good things must come to an end, so did this: it got a bit too popular for its own good, getting to the stage where people would be running up to her in the street going "ooh, Davina! Are you doing Streetmate? Can I be on it?", which sort of defeated the point of the programme a little bit.
But several years later, ITV2 have had the rather inspired idea of resurrecting it and giving it a new host in an attempt to revive the format, and from what we've seen of it so far, you can barely see the joins at all. Holly's got that early McCall sense of playfulness about the whole thing which works very well, even if she is frankly a bit rubbish at running down busy high streets in a way that Davina wasn't. And the format's still plagued by the same problems it always had (person agrees to go on date with stranger, person realises later off-camera what the hell they've just agreed to, person backs out when the cameras aren't there to capture it, presenter and original contestant have to start from scratch), but that's all part of its charm. This week, Holly's in Exeter and Edinburgh, but don't go up to her whatever you do. Just let her come to you, otherwise you'll get the show cancelled again.
By Steve :: Post link
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