Das Hausbau-Kommando - Trautes Heim, Glück allein

One day three weeks ago I was sat at home bored, flicking through the Sky channels when Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came on. It was an episode where Ty Pennington(how hot is he) and the team where transforming a house for a family who's young daughter Olivia had battled cancer.

This show is truly amazing, the houses they design are breath-taking. They build, and design amazing homes in just seven days. They send the family away on holiday why they do there magic. On thing I can say is that this show can make you cry, because this people lives have been turned upside down. They make families what they should be a family.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition rocks!

I have to shake my head when I read the comments of people that don't care for this show. It's obviously not about the nuts-and-bolts building of a house, and as far as Ty "never picking up a hammer" - for God's sake, they can't show the entire seven days of building the house, and if they did, who'd want to watch it?! Reality shows, by their nature, are cruel freak shows, highlighting the worst of human behavior, like disloyalty and back-stabbing motivated by greed (SURVIVOR comes to mind), gross-out stunts (FEAR FACTOR, anyone?), extolling the idea that physical beauty is the answer to all your problems (THE SWAN), or exploiting a near-psychotic desire to appear on TV no matter what the cost to yourself or your family (Jerry Springer and his ilk). Extreme Makeover Home Edition instead highlights the best in human behavior - compassion, a sincere desire to help someone in need, and the "pay it forward" idea that helping another human being will lead to that person helping another, and on and on. I don't enjoy being shown that people can be selfish, hateful morons that will eat a pig rectum or back-stab a friend for money or exposure, but I DO enjoy being reminded that there are people in the world willing to help others down their luck and do it in ways that change the recipient's lives.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is a wonderful, entertaining, inspiring show, cast to perfection with funny, entertaining people who do their jobs with exquisite taste and imagination. May it run forever!

Put me in the camp of those who detest this emotionally exploitative show which is all about greed. The premise takes down-and-out families, sends them on a luxury vacation for a week, while a huge team of workers rebuilds (or builds) them a house for FREE. (NOTE: I have no idea how they get around the tax liability that this kind of several-hundred-thousand-dollar gift would normally entail.) Furthermore, this show is an appalling insult to the many millions of hardworking American homeowners who work hard and save to afford even modest homes.

All of the families apparently already have homes of their own, and in many cases they seem incompetent to care for a small, simple house (some are living in squalor), so how can they possibly keep up a large ornate home? Anyone who owns a home knows that there is more to it than the mortgage payment -- even a "free house" has maintenance costs and responsibilities. Furthermore, the situation involved seems to invite exploitation: a recently publicized lawsuit was filed by several orphaned children, whose foster parents used the show to get a huge new house and furnishings for their "big family"...and then threw the kids out, and kept the place for themselves! Since no one bothers to revisit the other "winners", I would assume that similar greediness has affected many others.

Another example noted here is that of a home donated to the family of a US soldier killed in Iraq: even overlooking the fact that 1500 US soldiers have lost their life there and what makes this ONE family so special?, you are still faced with the reality that every soldier has about $250,000 in military life insurance MINIMUM (required) plus whatever regular insurance they have, plus burial expenses. No mention is made of this, or the fact that most families who lose a breadwinner get neither $250,000 OR a brand new home and luxury furnishings.

Many needy, worthy families in this tough economy need basic housing and furniture. Yet hundreds of thousands are spent in this show to give just ONE family (with a schmaltzy tale to tell) a super-luxury home. What ever happened to concept of a basic decent house and normal furnishings? Why do people NEED plasma televisions and 4000 square foot palaces? This is a horrible, morally shoddy kowtowing to the wretched values we have picked up as a culture from Hollywood celebrities, "lifestyles of the rich and famous" and so forth. We no longer have a reasonable idea of the basics.

Why not a show called "Extreme CAREER Makeover"? After all, what most of these "contestants" really need is a JOB, not a free house. (If you have a JOB, you can buy your own house.) And another one called "Extreme HOUSECLEANING Makeover". Because most of them also require a crash course in basics like vacuuming, washing, sweeping, picking up trash and so forth.

It takes little imagination to see the future of the Extreme winners: big houses gone to seed, family fights over the money and possessions, furniture and plasma TVs hocked to pay bills and so forth. Not telling "the rest of the story" is a big, dirty lie.

Conclusion: this is the worst and most base, vile show I can think of. Morally and spiritually, it's actually worse than "Fear Factor" and that's saying something!

I watch this show for three reasons.

1) All the crew loves the families and really want to help them. Which is totally cool, because I believe all the families deserve it.

2) I love watching the house transform and I love seeing the families faces when they come home to a brand new house.

3) Ty takes off his shirt in a lot of episodes. How could you not want to see Ty without a shirt on? (unless your a guy of course) Also, if you like this show you should watch the new one called "Extreme Makeover Home Edition: How'd They Do That?" they show a lot of stuff that the original one didn't. It's really cool!

Wow! What an amazing show. I never knew a show where everyone had such great hearts! This show not only has amazing families every week but the design team and crew just keep on working no matter what conditions there under. I also must admit that I really like their spin off series as well to give viewers a behind the scenes look at what they didn't see the night before it's on this show where you can also see the kindness of everyone on it. Way to go ABC you've really hit a Home Run with this show keep it up you're doing a great job so far! I hope that you guys keep it around for a while and I'm sure that in the future they'll still be watching this Wonderful show!

Rachel