Who Ya Gonna Call? Shark Jumpers!

I used to be an avid viewer of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”.  It was one of the true network family shows remaining.  Every Sunday night we watched, mesmerized at the ability of the staff to build a new home in a week.  We laughed at the antics of the on-camera personalities, and cried at the back stories of the families in need.  I soon learned to keep a box of kleenex nearby, for both the tears and the drool (Ty is hot).  

Eventually, we grew weary of the plotlines.  There were 2 categories the families on the show fell into.  A:  Widow or widower struggling to raise several kids alone, or B:  Family struggling with the illness (autism, cancer, etc) of one or more of their children.  After the first couple of seasons, it became the same story, different faces.  The cynicist in me started thinking about all the homeless shelters they could build with the money they spent on these huge homes.  I grew tired of Sears whoring themselves out every 30 seconds.  I found myself, running out of Kleenex, and wishing someone would slip Ty a rittalin.  It went from a must watch show, to a show we watched if nothing else was on. 

Last night, there was nothing else on, so we settled in to watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  The episode centered around a family with a autistic child, that lived in an old home which was haunted by a ghost.  Before demolishing the existing house, the Extreme Makeover crew called in a medium to make sure that tearing the house down and rebuilding wouldn’t upset the ghost.  The medium came into the home, and was immediately in conversation with the ghost, who confessed to being the spirit of the matriarch’s great-grandfather, and rattling off names of the family members currently living in the home.  The show’s personalities attested that the medium had not been given any information about the family or the home prior to coming in.  They then had the medium ask the ghost’s permission to demolish the home.  The ghost told the meduim that it would be fine, so long as they incorporated some of the wood from the existing house into the new house. 

Puh-Leeze.  Give me a break.  I’m not saying there aren’t ghosts.  I just think that, if they had already spent the time and money getting a crew to the house, and told the family they were getting a new house, that the feelings of some dead guy are irrelevant.  What if the ghost told them no, he would not be okay with them demolishing the house, what would’ve happened?  Would they have packed up and left?  Told the family, “sorry about your luck, Grandpa likes the old house, so it looks like you’re stuck with it? 

In my opinion, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has jumped the shark.