Holly Willoughby’s ‘Meet the Parents’ makes me miss ‘Blind Date’

For those of you that haven’t seen ‘Meet the Parents’ yet, it’s like ‘First Dates’ and ‘Take Me Out’ had a baby, and then that baby had a baby with ‘Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents’ resulting in what ITV clearly think is the next big Saturday night prime-time dating show.

It’s hosted by nation’s sweetheart Holly Willoughby who, with the absence of Philip Schofield, manages to make it through the entire show without having a laughter fit, which probably makes ‘Meet the Parents’ worth watching for that, if not anything else. Especially as the tv presenter has gamely taken over from dating show legend ‘Our Cilla’ with the toucing ‘Surprise Surprise’ so should be, and is, a snug fit here.

Sadly there isn’t much else, other than Holly, that does make it worth watching. It essentially has a ‘Blind Date’ format where a singleton has to choose between three hidden suitors except, as the title suggests, the singleton can see each of the suitors’ parents and even ask them questions.

What follows is the predictable bucketloads of awkwardness as parents drop their children in it, publicly embrarass them or come across a little too ‘Donald Trump’ when singing their children’s praises. All whilst three three hopefuls react in utter shock, as if they can’t believe their parent said that, even though they’re on a show called ‘Meet the Parents’

This results in the same problem that flaws ‘First Dates’ and ‘Take Me Out’. It’s reality television, it’s manufactured and pre-planed, it focusses more on shock-value and punch-lines rather than actual human beings trying to find love. The ‘contestants’ don’t feel like real people, they’re all far too beautiful to represent any society I’m familiar with outside of reality television, and like Paddy’s girls in ‘Take Me Out’ are so transparently actors or actresses or people who want to be famous and on tv rather than people who want to find love.

And that’s where ‘Meet the Parents’ falls down, it’s so clearly modeled itself after ‘Blind Date’ but with a twist that it feels derivative. It also completely misses the endearing human elements that made ‘Blind Date’ such a success, instead opting for pictures of messy bedrooms which is a real shame. I may just be a disillusioned cynic but nothing on television feels real anymore.