"While You Were Out" wants desperately to be "Trading Spaces" — but it's not.
TLC's new home-improvement series is but a permutation of its old one (and "Trading Spaces" is the Americanization of the BBC's "Changing Rooms"). But efforts to make "While You Were Out" at least a little bit different from its predecessors don't make for better TV.
The premise of "Changing" and, later, "Trading" is that two pairs of neighbors decorate a room in each other's homes. They have two days, a limited amount of money ($1,000 in America), and the help of an interior designer and a carpenter. Both shows are very entertaining.
I'll admit, however, that as a big "Changing Rooms" fan, it took me a while to warm up to "Trading Spaces." The addition of a new host with some personality, Paige Davis, helped in that regard — although she's no Carol Smilie (the host of "Changing Rooms").
And "Out" host Teresa Strasser is no Paige Davis.
"While You Were Out" is the same idea, only in this case one spouse conspires with the show's producers to decorate a room while the other spouse is out of town. There's still a limited budget, two days and the help of a designer and a couple of carpenters/handy people.
(And it's not exactly an original idea — the BBC does the same thing with its long-running "Ground Force" series, which does the work in the yard instead of in the house.)
The biggest innovation on "While You Were Out" is also the worst part of the show. The spouse who is going to be surprised is asked a number of questions (on videotape and somewhat surreptitiously, of course). If the other spouse can match those answers, then great stuff is incorporated into the redesigned room. If the answers don't match, then tacky stuff is incorporated.
It's not just that this part is pretty hokey, but it consumes way too much air time. The pattern is to ask the question, run through all the possible answers and then go to commercial. Then, coming out of commercial, the question is asked again, the possible answers are repeated and then — finally — we move on. It's a waste of time that could be better used showing us the actual redecorating.
"While You Were Out" is in the midst of showing three episodes shot in Utah over the summer. In the first, Salt Lake attorney Kelly had a basement redone for her lawyer husband, Jon. (The episode aired this past Saturday.) In the second, which airs Saturday at 8 p.m. on TLC, Tiburon has the sweltering deck at her Park City home redone for husband, Adam, as a cool, Mediterranean patio.
And in the third, which premieres Monday at 3 p.m. on TLC, Ogden's Alisa and the show surprise her husband, Rhett, with an outdoor-inspired living room that's big on twigs and leather.
None of the designs was exactly to my taste, but that's beside the point. The fun of shows like this is, first, seeing what the designers do to the rooms. And, second, seeing the reactions of those being surprised.
"Trading Spaces" does it a lot better than "While You Were Out." And without the dumb, time-wasting questions.
MORE OF THE SAME: How popular has "Trading Spaces" become? Popular enough so that imitators are popping up all over.
TLC's sister channel, Discovery, has "Surprise by Design" — which is sort of "Trading Spaces" crossed with "Queen for a Day." In a single day (usually about eight hours), two "hip" New York designers redo a room (as a surprise, of course) for some deserving soul who is nominated for the honor by a loved one.
It airs weekdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the Discovery Channel.
And then there's "Love by Design," which HGTV has imported from its north-of-the-border sister channel, HGTV Canada. Each episode takes a single man or woman on a tour of the homes of three members of the opposite sex. Based solely on those tours, the bachelor/bachelorette chooses a date — and then, without meeting the homeowner, makes over parts of the date's home. With the help of a designer, of course.
Only then do the bachelor and bachelorette meet, unveil the redesign and decide if they are compatible.
Really. I am not making this up.
"Love by Design" can be seen Mondays at 8:30 p.m. on HGTV.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com