Followers of 2000s actuality TV are more likely to keep in mind one of the feel-good exhibits on the market. ABC’s Excessive Makeover: House Version centered on a staff of designers and contractors who construct new properties for deserving households. These households usually handled disabilities, monetary struggles, loss, continual well being points, and so on. Versus different early actuality exhibits that glamorized vapid or trashy existence, Excessive Makeover: House Version took a extra healthful strategy. Not less than, that is the picture the present wished to painting. It was a unique story behind the scenes.
Sorry to wreck anybody’s childhood, however Excessive Makeover: House Version was truly one of the scrutinized exhibits of its day. It has been accused of leaving already struggling households in untenable monetary positions due to the extravagant house builds. Those self same households had been alleged to have been exploited by the manufacturing staff, who might have additionally overemphasized their contributions to the mission for TV rankings functions. However now Excessive Makeover: House Version is again, greater than a decade after it first went off the air. What’s the brand new program doing to deal with a few of these previous controversies? And simply what went down after the cameras stopped rolling? Let’s have a look again.
The Construction of ‘Excessive Makeover: House Version’
Consider it or not, Excessive Makeover: House Version was truly a spin-off. The unique Excessive Makeover adopted ladies who acquired “excessive makeovers” consisting of recent garments, hair and make-up, and cosmetic surgery in some instances. They had been then returned to their households in a giant “shock reveal,” an indicator that House Version would later make the most of.
ABC’s Excessive Makeover: House Version adopted carpenter Ty Pennington and a staff of designers. Whereas the staff diversified by season, essentially the most distinguished names included Paige Hemmis, Paul DiMeo, Ed Sanders, Eduardo Xol, Michael Moloney, and even rapper Xzibit for some purpose. Every week, the staff traveled to a unique a part of the nation to satisfy a struggling household with a home that was both too small or in disrepair.
After sharing their story and seeing the home, the household could be despatched away for a week-long trip. Due to the facility of company synergy, Disney World was a standard vacation spot. Pennington and the design staff introduced in a bunch of a whole bunch of contractors who truly did the work of constructing the home. In simply seven days, the previous home was torn down, and a brand new one was constructed instead. When the week was up, the household returned for the large reveal. Say it with us, “bus driver, transfer that bus!” Cue the tears.
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Excessive Makeover: House Version didn’t invent the fashionable house renovation actuality craze. However it did put its personal spin on issues. Whereas most different exhibits featured renovations of present properties, House Version popularized constructing a totally new house from the bottom up. It additionally leaned into households’ struggles to play on viewers’ heartstrings. However as we all know, it wasn’t so rosy behind the scenes.
‘Excessive Makeover: House Version’ Was Much less Healthful Behind the Scenes
One among Excessive Makeover: House Version‘s largest criticisms was the home-building course of itself. These properties had been usually big and extreme, drawing ire for glamorizing the “McMansion” life-style. ABC countered these criticisms by stating that every house was constructed for a selected household’s wants, even when it had six bedrooms for a household of three or 4. Nonetheless, the rushed seven-day construct interval meant some development work was shoddy at greatest. Those self same extravagant homes left some households in poor monetary positions after the present wrapped.
As much as 9 households from the unique present gave up their properties as a result of points together with foreclosures, unemployment, medical payments, or tax hikes (by way of CBS Information). Some took out house fairness loans, which had been then defaulted on. The other was true for different households, in that some simply made sufficient cash to afford a brand new house on their very own. Pennington affirmed that every scenario was distinctive, and the present supplied monetary recommendation. However in the end any choices concerning loans or mortgages are as much as the households themselves. And after struggling to get by for therefore lengthy, some simply weren’t in a position to sustain with the calls for of their new mansions.
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Talking of Pennington and the design staff, they’ve additionally been accused of overselling simply how a lot they contributed to the present. On-set sources claimed that the staff solely labored when the cameras had been rolling, although that declare was additionally disputed by Pennington. One other supply of controversy surrounded the casting of the households themselves. Leaked mid-2000s emails revealed that ABC particularly wanted individuals with uncommon or important disabilities for the present. This led to a wave of accusations that the present was utilizing these households for viewership and monetary achieve above all else. Which, to be truthful, is what drives most enterprise in Hollywood.
Excessive Makeover: House Version ran from 2004 to 2012 on ABC and was briefly revived by HGTV in early 2020. It returned to its authentic community, ABC, in January 2025, now with Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin as hosts. It is early, nevertheless it appears like this new model is following the identical playbook. Although Shearer and Teplin seem like genuinely empathetic to the brand new households’ wants, serving to them kind via their feelings surrounding their struggles. We’ll see if the revival can stand as much as scrutiny on this hyper-online social media panorama. Let’s hope it does, as real feel-good exhibits are few and much between in the present day. New episodes air on ABC and stream on Hulu.