Too much of a good thing

‘Adolescence’ has highlighted just how wholesome most primetime terrestrial TV has become. Phil Harrison wonders if we should call time on our diet of twee telly gentleness

- Phill Harrison

There is no denying the essential appeal of Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash. As seen in new BBC reality show Stacey & Joe, their home life is almost exactly as you’d imagine – a bit chaotic but full of warmth and sweetness too. But this mediated narrative of fishing lakes, al fresco dining and avocado toast in bed does feel like the latest expression of a trend that’s been building interrestrial television for a while now. It’s a sort of performative cosiness; a default setting of placid, beige gentleness. Happy tears and hugging. There’s an earnestness about lots of primetime TV now that would have been seen as gauche 20 years ago.

When reality TV was born, it soon tested its limits and established its boundaries. Big Brother (and its celebrity variations) headed for the extremes fairly quickly. In reality TV (as in much of the comedy of the late Nineties and early Noughties), there was an unseemly taste for harshness, for cringe, maybe even for cruelty. There were millions of takers for the barely submerged sneering of Little Britain, for the necksnapping wince of Wife Swap, for the voyeuristic horror of The Jeremy Kyle Show. If normal people were going to be represented on TV, it seemed they’d better get used to being the targets of mockery. And they’d better be ready to sing for their supper.