Many evenings in the Colognoissuer household are spent with me in my chair reading, testing perfume, or surfing the internet. While I do that my wife will often have the television on the cable network HGTV. Most of the time it is easy for me to tune it out and I’m only required to look up when Mrs. Colognoisseur asks me, “Do you like that?” Sadly for her the answer is often no. Over the past few months though there is one of these HGTV shows which has managed to penetrate my studied air of indifference, Love It or List It.
Love It or List It is a show where a current set of homeowners are given the opportunity to renovate their home, Love It, or find a newer improved home, List It. Most of the homeowners have begun to outgrow the home they bought years ago but have emotional reasons for not moving, or at least one of them does. Interior Designer Hilary Farr comes up with a plan to renovate the house using the budget the homeowners give her so they will want to stay. Working at odds with Hilary is realtor David Visentin who looks for a new home which has all of the things the homeowners want and might not be able to get. By the end of the hour with the renovations done and usually a perfect house found the homeowners have to make the decision to stay or go. I can’t explain it but I have so much fun trying to guess which way they will go.
The show is formulaic as it can get but the personalities of Hilary and David as they interact with the homeowners makes it seem fresher than it should. The first part of every episode is the introduction to the couple who own the home and one of them who really wants to stay and one who really wants to move. Hilary and David do a home inspection with David snarking about the home and Hilary promising she can make magic happen. They sit down with the homeowners and get their respective budgets and “must haves” to stay or go. In the next two segments renovation gets underway and almost every episode a hidden issue is uncovered which eats up a chunk of the renovation budget forcing a choice on something to give up. Oh no Hilary is in trouble! Interspersed between that David takes the couple to two houses which also contain significant flaws and it seems as if he will need to find the impossible to satisfy these homeowners. Oh no David is in trouble! This leads to the final segment where Hilary pulls it all together despite the challenges and David finds the perfect home. Yay our heroes rally! After the new renovation is revealed the decision to Love It or List It is revealed. So far, through 118 episodes Love It leads List It 69 to 49.
Of course this is reality television and this is HGTV which has admitted other of their shows are less “real” than they might seem. I am sure Love It or List It is no different and much of the “conflict” is manufactured and the decision is pre-ordained from the moment filming begins. I don’t care as I am not expecting a documentary and it really is the way Hilary and David carry the show that makes it enjoyable for me. The real fun is the smile I get from Mrs. C when I put down the laptop, close the book, or lay down the perfume vials to pay attention because I have decided to Love, Love It or List It.
–Mark Behnke
