Make a date with saturday night TV

Saturday night TV has been for some time a matter of great contention. Home to some of the finest shows that broadcasting has to offer, it is the pinnacle of the weeks TV. Which is why it is with a great degree of uncertainty that I looked at the listing and seeing new TV dating show ‘Take me out’. A show where the premise is simple – 30 women, 1 man, and the man then gives it his all to win a date... Sounds familiar to a certain older prime time TV dating show, once home to the great Cilla Black doesn’t it? And so, it is with understandable scepticism but an innate intrigue that I first set my eyes on the show 5/6 weeks ago.

Now let me tell you, it is a show that is repetitive, cheap and cringing – but strangely brilliant.

Admittedly, I wouldn’t recommend watching when looking for some real brain taxing stuff, but as far as light hearted and simple entertainment goes, this show has struck a gold mine. A family friendly dating show, that is both funny and has you screaming at the TV. From the moment where the man comes down the lift, to the crunch time when he has to pick his date, you find yourself interacting unintentionally with the show. A chorus of ‘he’s gunna pick her’ or ‘deary me, what a tragic bloke’ often echo around my houses living room mid-show.

Yet the true brilliance of the show lies solely in the hands of comedian/host Paddy McGuinness. A man most notably famed for his role in Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddys Road To Nowhere – his comic assertion on Take Me Out is one not to be missed. Siding predominantly with the men, and inadvertently mocking both the contestant and the women at any given opportunity, Paddy dictates the direction of the show and moves it along with effortless yet catchy phrases such as ‘no likey, no lighty’ that have become ever present in the show.

The other masterstroke is the lack of attention paid on the dates themselves. Despite an equal proportion of new contestants and dates shown, the previous week’s dates are swept along with swift efficiency. Combined with the show sending the dates to local restaurant ‘Fernando’s’ as opposed to the lavish holidays often associated with Blind date a few years back, show that the producers aren’t trying to replicate the structure of the show. It instead shows an indication that they know it’s low-brow, cheap and will have shed loads of critics – but by going through with it regardless the show’s producers are essentially sticking two fingers up at anyone who believes every show has to be of a high end intellectual nature.

So, with great surprise, this is me giving my upmost seal of approval to Take Me Out. A show full of catch phrases, dim-witted contestants and budget dates – quite literally the epitome of the phrase ‘guilty pleasure’.

Whilst some will clearly be sceptics to the show and what I’ve said, my retort is simple. In the words of Paddy McGuinness himself

If you don’t enjoy the show then

“No Likey, No Lighty”