Children of the media revolution
Mark Lawson
Since the shadow of reality TV fell over the land, television critics have become like members of apocalyptic cults, watching for the signs that the final days of broadcasting civilisation are upon us. When the format of Love Me, Love My Kids was first advertised, many saw in it the number of the beast. A show in which the children of single-parent families auditioned potential partners for their mum and dad sounded like the scheduling equivalent of a rain of frogs.
The same production company, RDF, had made Wife Swap, a programme which some media doomwatchers had seen as a harbinger of moral armageddon. But that series was clearly a relationship game-show - in which the domestic rearrangements were temporary - and the main participants were adults who presumably understood that the prize of television exposure carried the risk of mild humiliation and emotional damage. The risk of Love Me, Love My Kids was that vulnerable children would be teased with the prospect of new step-parents in full view on TV. While Wife Swap merely exploited the celebrity-greedy, this show might prey on the emotionally needy.
Well, three editions (featuring the Merries, Isaacs and Roma families) have been sent out to the press and it's immediately clear that the makers will not have to suffer condoms filled with purple powder being thrown at their offices by Fathers 4 Justice. In two of the first three shows, the lonely heart is a father bringing up children (in one case, five of them) on his own. These relatively progressive credentials are extended by the fact that there is a racial mix among the participants, which is still disgracefully rare in television.
Another attempt to deflect criticism is that the children are clearly shown to be in control. The format asks that the kids audition 20 applicants for the post of mum or dad's date, choosing two to come and spend the weekend with the family. After these domestic auditions, it is the children again who select one of the pair to go on a solo date with their guardian. In the interests of dramatic tension, the grown-up supposedly never knows, when they walk in to the living room or restaurant, whom the kids have picked for them.
One obvious advance fear was that the programme would be prurient but, because it's more or less hosted by the children, the tone is generally innocent. The interviews with the suitors most resemble the revoltingly cute American TV series Kids Say the Darndest Things as the potential new partners are asked, "How often do you wash?'"and, "Are you good at burping?" The challenges set to the contenders include ice-skating, singing and dancing and sleeping-bag races down the stairs.
The shows are divided into three segments, which suggests that the target audience around the world is commercial broadcasters. Most of RDF's work has played in Britain on Channel 4 but BBC1 has taken this one. That fact - and the decision to schedule it in a pre-watershed slot - means that the format always lacks the danger and genuine psychological insights of Wife Swap and Boss Swap.
In fact, against expectations, the series, seeking child-friendliness, may have emerged too gentle and sensitive. For example, there's a legitimate interest in knowing how the protagonists ended up alone but the question is only touched on once, when one of the Merrie children comments of a mother-substitute who doesn't do the cooking: "My dad would never have stayed with me mam if she hadn't done all that. Well, they didn't stay together."
The most depressing aspect of the series is the apparently willing supply of participants. Most people who appear on television do so because, whatever the drawbacks of the medium, it is the most efficient way of achieving their aim. Relatively reclusive writers and artists consent to documentaries because exposure will help them commercially. The parents of missing children give televised press conferences because such appearances reach more people than posters.
The mystery of series such as Love Me, Love My Kids, though, is that television is surely the least reliable and effective way of finding a new lover. No one involved can be sure if the other person is really seeking a new partner or just a spell on the telly, and a date filmed by cameras can never be a real relationship. So the only possible conclusion is that the hunger for fame is now greater than the desire for love.
ยท Love Me, Love My Kids, Tuesday, 7pm, BBC1
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