Mike Holmes’ new series solidly built, but fans might not feel at home

Opinion

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This article was published 21/07/2015 (3729 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As any fan of Canadian DIY-themed television can tell you, Mike Holmes has built a specialty-TV empire on the strength of his “Make It Right” brand.

Whether he lives up to that motto with his new Fox series, Home Free, depends on what you expect from a home-reno-driven TV show.

If you think such programming should faithfully display participants learning hard on-the-job lessons by carrying out the difficult nuts-and-bolts work of transforming a dilapidated mess into a move-in-ready dwelling, Home Free might not meet your code requirements.

But if you’re happy settling into a show that features less DIY grunt work and focuses instead on positive outcomes and inspiring, uplifting moments for its participants, Holmes’ latest effort might get your seal of approval.

Home Free is basically what you’d expect when a major ratings-driven broadcast network gets its hands on a program format that’s a staple of the DIY specialty-TV realm. The foundation is a solid home-improvement concept, but the rest of the structure has been renovated to satisfy the requirements of network executives who believe built-in and ramped-up drama are necessary in prime time.

Home Free has Holmes enlisting the assistance of nine couples — each with a unique but consistently heart-wrenching background story — for whom the dream of home ownership has remained out of reach. During the series’ eight-week run, they will be required to renovate eight different houses (one per episode), with the understanding that each house will then be turned over to a deserving family.

At each episode’s end, Holmes will also eliminate the couple that has fared the most poorly in that week’s reno challenges. The catch — and this isn’t a spoiler because it’s explained several times in the first episode — is that after the other teams have been loaded onto a bus to travel to the next location, the eliminated couple will be told they are the deserving family that will take up residence in that week’s just-completed dream home.

It is, as you can imagine, an extremely heart-tugging “reveal.”

On the basis of that moment alone, Home Free quickly establishes itself as an aspirational reality-TV series that packs an impressive emotional punch.

If the “Make It Right” mantra is meant to be targeted to hearts and minds rather than bricks and mortar, then Holmes is very much true to his word with this show.

In terms of the actual renovation work, however, there’s a lot of shorthand in Home Free’s design. It’s promoted as a show in which the competing couples do the renovating, but a look at the first episode reveals the bulk of the massive projects’ work — major structural improvements and jobs requiring a building-trade skills far beyond what these amateurs could hope to learn in a year, let alone a week — will be done by Holmes’ large crew of trained professionals.

Despite being shown working long hours and being tested far beyond what they’ve ever experienced with tools in their hands, the scope of the challenges the contestants face is quite limited.

Simply put, it’s clear the couples build the drama while the professionals build the house.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; as it’s constructed, Home Free is quite good at what it’s designed to do. But it might not be what fans of Holmes’ previous TV efforts have come to expect.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @BradOswald