Don't Tell The Bride: ...or anyone else that this show exists.

BBC Three is not a channel intended for me, and that's fine. It's more for the people who talk about their human rights before heading to a bar to smash a bottle over some unsuspecting citizens head. The people that claim all women are beautiful, then cry anorexia when they see a girl under 10 stone. Their key demographic, essentially, are un-ironic, unapologetic idiots, and I understand that. Cynicism aside, the channel serves an important purpose to retain the focus of people who, left to their own devices, would probably just take to making homophobic slurs on Twitter. I hate just about every program on BBC Three, but I get the purpose of all of them; I understand why they enjoy millions of viewers every week. All of them, except one. Don't Tell the Bride is the most pointless, tasteless, brainless and offensive tripe that has ever stumbled drunkenly onto a television screen, and anyone who genuinely enjoys it should be banned from having any sort of judgement on whether any form of entertainment is credible or not.

Is that a Zorb with wheels? Sort of defeats the purpose, really.

Don't Tell the Bride revolves around the concept of working class loving couples being given £12,000 to make a wedding, with the condition that the groom plans everything and the wife has no say in what is arranged. What appears to be an exploitation of the poor quickly becomes much worse as the magic of editing presents every groom as being clueless, uncaring and generally unfit to plan a wedding, and the bride is presented as shrill, demanding and distrustful. At the end of the episode, everything goes to plan (BIG REVEAL: because, despite what you saw, the groom actually did pretty well) and the two of them enjoy their special day, with the bride proclaiming her love for her other half (ALSO BIG REVEAL: because she's a rational woman and trusts the man she's committed the rest of her life to). This would be worth an eye-roll and a channel change - perhaps accompanied with a w*nker gesture if it's been a bad day - if this was a one off Channel 4 documentary, but has been going on for six series'. EIGHTY episodes. All following this exact formula. Not once does the groom actually balls up the wedding, and you'd be hard pressed to find an episode where the bride walks out on the poor guy in disgust. Awfulness is damning, predictable awfulness is unforgivable.

I've touched on the despicable editing on the show, but the other aspects of the design deserve condemnation as well. Every episode is narrated by a sickeningly smug woman, who I suspect is playing the part of your annoying friend who watches movies with you, spelling out every scene to make them feel like an expert, when in reality she's just spelling it out for the brain dead and passive target demographic. You think what she tells you to think, and her ruthless determination to find drama in the most mundane problems results in some truly terrible television.

What hurts the most, though, and this is why I truly despise Don't Tell the Bride as opposed to simply not care for it, is how it panders and caters to some of the laziest gender stereotypes in Britain today. All women want to do is get married. That's what they need, what they crave. Ever since they were five and dressed up as princesses, they've dreamed of their perfect day with the perfect prince. All women have planned this day out to the most intricate detail but OH HELL NO, the man I love, the joint most important person on this day is arranging it?! Cue two weeks of tears, complaining to friends and her mother and at least three utterances of "YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING". And all men choose beer and video games over their fiances, and are too stupid and selfish to commit any attention to something as trivial as a marriage. Who cares about weddings, anyway? Men don't. They could get married at Shotgun Pete's, for all he cares.

If you stood up and applauded any of that last paragraph, or hell, even think more of me as a writer and a human being, then Don't Tell the Bride is for you. Otherwise, nice job on being a decent member of society.

Bad TV has been around forever, but Don't Tell the Bride, I believe, has reached a pinnacle that few will be able to match. And the scary thing is, it shows no sign of letting up. It has sapped into the British public's minds like brain slugs, and won't be satisfied until we are all unable to tell what is and isn't acceptable entertainment. Until then, I'm just stuck being uptight about it on here. Whatever, what else is on? Channel 4 are usually better at getting the balance between mindless and tasteless right, what have they got on?

.............you're f***ing kidding.