Joey Essex and Sam Faiers
TOWIE goes live tonight, as for once the permatanned and vajazzled Essex socialites take to the airwaves without a safety net. The question is why now though?
Over the last few years, the show has been cramming in the episodes, never even letting the possibility of audiences forgetting about the Essex brigades antics enter the equation.
Until now though, the notion of a live show has never even entered the occasion, so why have the executives decided that now is the perfect time for a special, live edition of the show?
The answer is that their terrified of their audience leaving the show behind.
The show just finished off its seventh series, recording its lowest rating yet and with an eighth not yet confirmed, it’s a the TV equivalent of pushing the panic button.
While Emmerdale could pull off a similar move earlier this year without making anyone bat an eyelid, that was done as a celebration of the show’s 40th anniversary. Emmerdale is also a drama full of professional actors capable of pulling off such a feat.
No disrespect meant to any of TOWIE’s cast, but it seems highly unlikely that Joey Essex is going to be headlining a production of Hamlet anytime ever.
This is the moment when fans of TOWIE should start being concerned. Not only is their plenty of opportunity for disaster tonight, but it leads to a dangerous precedent of the show having to go down ever increasingly silly lines to get in the viewers.
Every show at some point ‘Jumps The Shark’ if it’s gone on for too long of the creative team has run out of ideas. While Happy Days put the final nail in its coffin when they made The Fonz jump over a shark, maybe making Chloe Simms and co perform live is the turning point of TOWIE’s life.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith