Under One Roof, Episode 1: Home Sweet Home

I gotta hand it to the folks at Endemol. They are the ones responsible for Big Brother – in every country. They flopped in this country with Chains of Love (indeed, it was bad enough to be the first show inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Shame). But they came back with Under One Roof, now appearing Friday nights at 8 EST on UPN.

The premise is simple. Take five American families, and send them to Fiji. Now personally, I think Fiji was a dumb move, have the producers heard about last year’s coup there? Anyway, they go to Fiji and are given a lovely house. And all five families have to live there, doing challenges and trying to get along. It is not easy, just look at all the teenagers there. Oh my! My mom would tell you it was bad enough living with two teenage girls, can you imagine a dozen or so kids? Well, at least there is no phone, or doesn’t appear to be, so all is OK. Each group of challenges awards the families ribbons. First prize gives four ribbons, second place three ribbons, third place two ribbons , fourth place one ribbon, and last place no ribbons. After two challenges, the family with the fewest number of ribbons has half hour to exit the house. In this way it’s more like The Amazing Race than Survivor, as the families don’t cannibalize themselves, instead if they mess up on the challenges, they lose.

The families arrive in Fiji. All are taken to different parts of the island and given a homing device. Now these homing devises are way cool. It tells you where your home is. Can you imagine the people here who would want one? Oh the Sharper Image has to start selling them! Can you imagine trying to find your way home in the snow? I want one! Each family is told the house is one kilometer away. The families all have t-shirts with their first names on the front and their surname on the back. They are all wearing dorky necklaces with their first initial of their surname on it. The families are all blindfolded (oh I left that out! – the families are blindfolded to get to their destinations and lead by a native Fijian). At the same time, all families are told to take their blindfolds off by their respective Fijian guides, and they are off! Armed with two igloo-y things containing what, I don’t know, they go off into the sunset – nope, that would be a movie, but they go off in search of adventure.

The Distel family gets there first, they go by sea in kayaks, two in each one. Mom and daughter are talking like Valley Girls; all that is missing is Moon Zappa. But they are a close family, and seem to have a great relationship, so I will let them talk like Valley Girls if they want to. In fact, all the families seem to be great in this department, all the parents love their children, and the children all seem to get along with their parents.

Which just goes to show you: This is television, not the real world. If it wasn’t TV, the kids would not be listening to their parents!

The Distels take the first two bedrooms, with their daughter telling the camera the other families will hate them for taking two bedrooms.

The Skofields arrive second. Once they found out the back two rooms were open, they claimed them. The two families start with the cursory introductions, and the parents seem to be getting along. They discuss the first two families taking so many bedrooms, and the other families will hate it because they will be sleeping on the floor.

The McRaes arrive third. Now this family seems to be getting the most air time. Does that mean they are the first to go? Only time will tell. Behind their backs the other two families laugh about them not having a bedroom. It is not a good start! One of the adolescents, Matt Skofield, decides to be cute (well he is , if you are a 16-year-old girl), and puts his family’s flag on the fridge. Oh yes. Every family is given these felt type flags with their surname on it , you put them on the bedrooms and other places in the house to stake your claim. Mr. McRae decides to play tit for tat, and puts one on the bathroom door, the laundry room and the stove. Mrs. McRae says she was disappointed when she saw all the bedrooms were taken, so she said the bathroom was okay. This does not make sense to this writer. Four bedrooms, 21 or 22 people and one loo? With adolescent girls and boys? That seems like a cruel and inhumane thing to do to their parents.

The Skofield dad and the McRae dad go at it. Their problem is they are both Alpha males. ( I hate that term!) The McRaes want to stake their claim in the bathroom and are not budging. The Skofield Dad seems to think bathrooms are public access, unless the McRaes want them to run out to the ocean every time they need to relieve themselves, just like on Survivor. Their children seem to get upset, and mostly embarrassed at their parents behavior. Ah! Now I know it is reality TV. The kids are getting embarrassed by their parents. Hurray! They are real children after all, not Stepford Children.

Meanwhile the Hatfields are lost. Cut back to the Skofield dad and the McRae dad getting into a catfight. Or the male version of one. The Paganis are still lost to the house. The Hatfields arrive totally exhausted. Mr. McRae and Matt Skofield help them carry their belongings into the house. The Paganis finally arrive, lots of introductions, made easier by the fact they are wearing T-shirts with their first and last names on ‘em. Not to mention the dorky necklace.

Then Rob, the host who reminds me of Mark Wahlberg from Tempation Island, assembles everyone in front of the house. He tells them in order to win their dream house, they will have to compete in a series of games that will test their ability to work as a team, to bond. They are also giving the families a one-time provision of food. It looks like quite a lot of food, but then, there are a lot of adolescents in the house and they inhale food.

The teenage and pre-teen girls bond. The families decide one family will cook and clean every night. Sounds fair to me. The food seems to be a bone of contention with the adults, especially with so many teenagers. Mark Anderson, a member of the Hatfield family, is sure there will be conflicts. The house is then shown from a long shot, it is beautiful.

First quest for the dream home. It is a Fijian boat race. There will be two property quests, one a week, for the house. After the second, the family that has the least amount of ribbons awarded, has to go buh-bye.

Each family has to construct a raft – hey wasn’t this just on Survivor? Maybe next they’ll have to make a distress signal. Wonder if they’ll swap some of the teenagers. Anyway, in the ocean there are crab traps on buoys. Each family has to build a raft, swim out to a buoy, grab a crab trap, bring their raft back on the beach, and touch their crab trap to the flagpole. The first family to do this wins.

The McRaes and the Paganis need to sit one child each for this since each family has five. Like Survivor, you see various people being interviewed while the rafts are being built. No one has a clue how to build one. The Distels are the first team into the water, the Hatmakers second. The McRaes third. The Skofields and the Paganis are the last to enter the water.

The Distels make the shore first, but their raft is very heavy, because it got waterlogged. The Hatmakers then get there first, but not before they accidentally dropped their raft on the Distels, who come in second. The McRaes are struggling, which is surprising because Mr. McRae is big, and the Skofield family helps them carry their raft up and then the McRaes go back and help the Skofields. Awww. The Paganis come in last, their littlest girl starts crying and their mom comforts her. Then Rob tells the Paganis they can turn it around by going into ISOLATION! Isolation means sleeping somewhere else other than the house for a night. The Paganis decide to do this. They are taken to an old church built in 1918, which was destroyed 20 years before by a cyclone. They get one ribbon for staying and one ribbon for solving a riddle of shells put out on the windows.

Meanwhile back at the house, the families try to figure out where the Paganis will be sleeping, not realizing the Paganis probably have more room in this old church then they do at the house. How horrible a place was picked? For that one night, it is decided all four families will each get one room. Hurray! And a clip back to the Paganis in the church – before he leaves Rob tells them it is haunted. OK. Way to set the kids off Rob! The girls start crying. But they are brave and they will do it.

And the show ends.

You can reach Susan at sschechter@earthlink.net. Watch for our Episode 2 recap, coming soon!

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