When I come across this type of substandard telly, I sometimes play a game in my head. I imagine the pitch to the commissioning editor. In this instance it would go something like this. “You know people love how-to business competitions, and people love property porn? Well, this is The Apprentice meets Sunset Boulevard!”
Once they have the go-ahead producers must merely construct an Alan Sugar amalgam in the form of London geezer Daniel McPeake, and his New York boss Eddie Shapiro. Hungry self-promoting young hopefuls are recruited to the New York headquarters of Nest Seekers with the lure of an apprenticeship and eye-watering commissions. Roll the cameras.
And then, and then, it all falls apart. I guess it was assumed that at that point everything would kind of sort itself out; just film people walking around expensive properties. A word about the properties. They’re naff. They’re absolute proof that money can’t buy you taste. I mean, how much marble does it take to feel like you’ve finally made it?
(L-r) Mike Love, Daniel McPeake, Eddie Shapiro, Vanesa Tonova, Georgie June, Aly Hamdan, Krishan Mistry (Photo: BBC/Plum Pictures/Paul Husband)
Part of the problem is that while London’s an amazing city, from where I’m sitting it doesn’t have either the views or the new builds that property shows in LA or Sydney are able to deploy. Over there, you might witness something that literally takes your breath away. In Zone One the focus is more on interiors but, on the available evidence, interiors that look as if they’ve been designed by the boss of a 1980s drug cartel who has sketched his ideas on a napkin
The programme takes us to London’s billionaires’ row, aka Bishops Avenue, and kudos to the filmmakers for finding the three properties on that strip that aren’t derelict or building sites. And, to be fair, it is a funny moment intentional or not, when one of the contestants Krish obtains an insider “tip’” that the next door property might be for sale. Cut to him standing out front of the largest For Sale sign ever seen.
All the contestants are likeable enough, albeit in a plonker-type way. The problem is they’re not given any direction. With no training in real estate, they’re expected to just get on with it and miraculously conjure up buyers. That they manage to come up with anything at all for the directors to film is to their credit. But this doesn’t make for good viewing.
Unless, of course, there’s something more subversive going on. Maybe this isn’t a silly ill-executed television show, but insurgent proof that the entire prestige property market is a con. You know, one that anyone hungry enough who has the gift of the gab can conquer and make millions. Nah, surely not.
