HGTV'south New 'Dear Information technology or Listing It' Episodes Show the Moment COVID Ruined Everything

It started off similar any other episode of Love It or List Information technology. Couple Travis and Drew were arguing about whether or not they should stay put in their abode (with the help of a renovation from Hilary Farr) or buy a bigger new domicile from real estate agent David Visentin. Travis was beingness persnickety about the size of their home. Hilary discovered a late infinitesimal hiccup in the floor program. And what's this? Wait. Why are Travis and Drew filming themselves on with a selfie stick? And why is David talking to them on Skype?

It turns out I was watching a brand new episode of Love It or List Information technology filmed in 2020.

Yup, HGTV's marquis level content has officially slammed into COVID-xix and they're actually handling it pretty well. That is, they really kept up enough production to end full episodes of Beloved It or List It. (Not to mention a moment in Windy City Rehab where Alison Victoria stresses how much more important habitation offices are "now.")

David Farr on skype on Love It or List It
Photo: HGTV

Notwithstanding seeing the creative ways in which shows similar Honey It or List It persevered with product throughout this flaming fart of a year is a flake unsettling. It both normalizes the foreign way our lives have get while likewise pointing out how inherently simulated HGTV'due south suite of shows are in the commencement place. HGTV has fully acclimated to the pandemic and, uh, I don't know how I experience virtually it.

To exist sure, HGTV has been acknowledging the pandemic for months on air. Shows like Comedians on Couches Watching House Hunters, Design at Your Door and Martha Knows Best incorporated social distancing into their setups. However, the bulk of the channel'due south content came, every bit always, from marathons of hitting shows like Firm Hunters, Belongings Brothers, Good Bones, and yes, Love It or List Information technology.

Watching HGTV sometimes feels like being unstuck from time. Episodes shot in the early on 2010s air later relatively recent releases. Sometimes the but mode you can tell how long ago an episode was shot is thanks to a combination of blueprint trends or how old the recurring child "characters" are. (How tall Scrap and Jo's kids are in a Fixer Upper episode is as good a time-marker as a mention of the "silos.") HGTV shows are, usually, an escape from reality. A vision of how other people alive their lives that you can estimate from your own habitation. Notwithstanding these Zoom episodes of Dear Information technology or Listing Information technology shatter that illusion while simultaneously proving how practiced HGTV is at churning out content.

Love it or List it couple filming themselves with selfie stick
Photograph: HGTV

It's 1 matter to run into a fully-produced episode of Honey information technology or List information technology from years by or even a clip show clearly fabricated during the pandemic. Notwithstanding it's quite different to be lulled into thinking yous're watching an episode made in the "Before Times" only to slam into COVID quarantining mid-episode. The tonal shift is jarring. The references to everyone'southward wellness and rubber triggering. And watching the end-gap measures put in identify to stop the episode is utterly baroque.

To go from a fully produced segment to watching the lead couple walk effectually with a selfie stick opens upwards a ton of questions. Only making the state of affairs more than circuitous? The fact that Hilary and David show up together on Zoom, leading viewers to wonder where they physically are…and if they're quarantining together? Narratively, the episode I was watching — "Pattern in the Dog House" — didn't encounter a hiccup. That merely inspired me to wonder how much of HGTV's hits rely upon their stars or their product teams. (Hilary did non stage that house. Has she staged Whatever house?)

Seeing what COVID has done to HGTV'southward marquis hits is unsettling indeed. Information technology's non only a reminder of how much our lives have been turned upside downward, merely it pokes at the film perfect veneer of the network's hit shows. Viewers are led to believe that HGTV stars fully committed to the projects onscreen, but these new formats undermine that myth.

In 2020, HGTV declared the show must go along, and it did. And now we have full seasons of HGTV shows that won't help us become unstuck in time, but will instead elevate u.s.a. back to this year whenever they air in the future.

Where to stream Beloved It or List It