Come Dine With Me at Breakfast

Thanks to a combination of Channel 4′s afternoon repeats and the magic of Sky Plus, I’ve started watching Come Dine With Me,every day, while I eat my breakfast. It’s worryingly addictive.

For anyone who has been living under a rock, the format is simple: four (or five) contestants take turns hosting dinner parties and they mark each other out of ten. At the end of the week, the winner takes home £1000.

It seems the perfect reality TV format: cookery mixed with people trying their best to impress. It also manages to avoid the twin pitfalls of this kind of show; annoying wannabes and clueless idiots being exploited. It gives the contestants just enough rope to hang themselves, should they choose to do so. It’s topped off by a sarcastic, mocking commentary by Dave Lamb, that, shockingly for a day time show, is actually funny.

Channel 4 must know that they’re on to a good thing as it is repeated ad infinitum (and they show it on More4 too). I think it will soon be rivaling Friends as the channel’s most repeated programme.