Review of Grand Designs: Complete Series 3 (2 Discs)

Introduction

Hot through my letterbox recently was Series Three of Grand Designs. I have to say it wasn`t my idea of a good time, but then I did also get Law & Order Season 4 to take the edge off the disappointment. Anyhow Grand Designs is a Channel 4 series that oddly enough looks at grand architectural designs as ordinary folk like you and me (but on the whole with either oodles more cash or far more ready for big risk) who want to build the house of their dreams.

Eight episodes in this series, I have four at my disposal.

Modern House In Natural Surroundings - a big wooden box with one side completely glass

The Disused Waterworks - old industrial building converted by hand into a HUGE living space.

The Handmade House - a house almost completely manufactured from natural resources from the nearby woods.

The Contemporary Barn - a barn conversion with a bit of a difference

Video

I have to say that regardless of the subject matter, the whole thing looks really good. The opening sequence leading to the menu`s is just the show`s proper opening sequence, but I didn`t know that until I hit the button to play the first one. It just looks right. The picture is sharp and vibrant. It looks gorgeous.

Audio

Standard Dolby 2.0 Stereo soundtrack with a gentle music soundtrack to accompany the drama of building projects. Again, it just fits nicely. Nicely subtitled too.

Features

Separate CGI walkthroughs of the houses featured. These walkthroughs are part of the normal episodes, but here you`re spared the tedium of the episodes with a 3 minute CGI representation of what the house should look like once it`s finished.

The natural house also has a revisit, where Kevin McCloud has more than one surprise awaiting him.

Conclusion

This series comes on two discs, but lucky me. I only got one. Normally Reviewer Towers echoes with frustrated cries of `Only one disc??? How am I supposed to write a balanced view of that?` Suppose though, you are spared a fate worse than something quite bad, less wasted time and minimum boredom. It`s that this is a bad DVD or anything, just that this type of reality show, well any reality show, just bores me rigid.

What I did like about this series was seeing what a wreck the original location was and then seeing how it looked at the end. I wasn`t interested in the half hour of mayhem on construction projects, so the ability to quickly skip from first to final chapter was a real boon. I know that a lot of people like this sort of thing though otherwise we wouldn`t have so many house related series at the moment. What I`m struck with though is just how good the finished houses look, but also how disappointing at the same time. For a start they don`t look like the conventional idea of a home. On top of that they don`t look lived in at all, all the surfaces are nice and shiny and despite the presence of children, just don`t look lived in. Lastly, for the most part, they are out of the price range of most people, so the majority of people watching this are viewing this as purely aspirational TV rather than something they could do themselves.

Kevin McCloud is an above average presenter, but then there appears to be an army of bland daytime TV presenters out there. He seems to have a passion about his chosen field, which is a nice change from the celebrity-type presenter who just looks good but doesn`t really know anything.

On the bad side though, there is no real downside to this series. Although there are problems during `the build`, the houses are all finished and lived in at the end of the hour (this is including commercials obviously). There are budget overspends, but these are always glossed over. It`s all a bit too nicey nice for me. Oh, and another thing, I really hate the fake script feel to the last section where our Kev visits the completed house. There are cameras both in and out of the house, so why make the featured couples act surprised when he appears on their doorstep.

I`m sure there`s an audience out there for this. It`s just not me.