The day after the Big TV Event. Calm. No calls, no e-mails from people clamoring for designs. Nobody knocking at the door asking for Mike Cheasshox’s autograph. It’s as though the TV episode never aired.
So much for doing some unpaid work in the hope of capturing at least one potential client from the ether. Still, it was an interesting experience, and one that did nothing to raise my opinion of people who work in the television industry.
Television people are different. They don’t care about showing what was done so much as who did it. They didn’t show how the concrete was colored, the metal burnished, the shade structure bolted together, the burners installed in the fire pit, how the existing plants were pruned or new plants installed. Instead, they showed close-ups of celebrities loudly competing for sound bites.
Presumably the reason people tune into the show is to look at the gardens and the work involved in transforming them from sow’s ears into silk purses. Not really a big priority here. The gardens blurred by in seconds, followed by more celebrities or a fixation on catfish being dumped into a pond.
It didn’t help that they mangled both our last name and the company name. How you transform “Luciole Design” into “Licole Design” remains a mystery, yet they managed this without even working up a sweat.
The best line was David Louie, shouting, “Turn off the master valve”, caught in widescreen action. An emotion-filled scene caused by a broken water main that was quickly transforming the garden into a lake. The main was fixed quickly enough and everyone was back to work. No, they didn’t bother to show how the water main was fixed – something I would have liked to see.
Lest you think I’m a crank, the comments about too many celebrities and not enough landscapes were a common thread in feedback from friends and family who watched the show. Too much hype and not enough substance, but then that’s the way these things have always been done so that’s the way they’ll continue. Shame.