Wednesday, August 11, 2010

"10 Years Younger - The Challenge" consigned to the bin

It was made over a year ago and is now seeing the light of day at the strange daily time of 5pm. Channel 4's "10 Years Younger - the Challenge" has clearly reached the end of the road.

The rot set in when presenter Nicky Hambleton-Jones was dismissed in favour of the bland Myleene Klass. Klass isn't a stylist so she brings nothing to proceedings. The way she is forever grabbing the contestants is very irritating. A mysterious "team of stylists" does the dressing part which makes the show unbalanced. They clearly buy the clothes without the contestants trying them on. In one show this week, a contestant didn't like the garish colours but nothing else was provided. She even had to wear the clothes she didn't like in her "after" montage.

As for the contestants: well. They've all been mostly in their 5Os. To my mind they don't deserve the makeovers they get. Could they never get to a dentist? Have they never heard of a hairdresser? If they bought at least one women's magazine a month they would surely improve their dress sense.

But this show has always been about the dramatic transformations. So the worst they look at the start, the better.

A new dentist was hired at the same time as Klass and I think her results are dreadful. She goes for the big white US smile, which looks unnatural on these older women. And as we're told the dentistry usually costs around £19k, and veneers often last for only 10 years, I hope these women will be able to afford it when they're left with blackened stumps.

Shows about plastic surgery are less popular than they were. Extreme Makeover has been cancelled in the US. So 10 Years Younger added the twist of one contestant having surgery and the other having a non-surgical transformation. But really, as soon as their hair and make-up is done properly, and they wear decent clothes, they already look 10 years younger.