I haven't seen This Old House in years. As an apartment-dwelling teenager in the 80's, I watched it every week. My grandfather had been a carpenter and I was amazed at the skill of Bob Vila and Norm Abram, who at first was a peripheral character.

The current "reality show" home improvement shows all have the same flaw: no one cares about the actual work; it's all about the fake drama. We used to love the Restoration show on the History Channel when it actually showed the process they went through to estimate costs, get parts and do the real work. But a season later, all that stuff was pushed to the background for, you guessed it, more fake drama!

It really bugs me because you'd think that with as many available TV channels as there are, there'd be room for all kinds of quality entertainment, but in the end it all just seems to be a race to the bottom in search of more viewers with miniscule attention spans.