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So I’m sitting here with my wife, watching this show for at least the seventh or eighth time without really meaning to, and I start thinking: I like this show. It works. It’s not as if I plan to watch it, but it’s on Sunday night when there’s nothing else to do, and so it just sort of happens, and . . . I guess I’m saying that I’m all right with that.

So then I start thinking: but why does this show work so well? Isn’t it just another reality show? Isn’t it just a big Sears commercial in disguise? Maybe. Or could it be that it works so well because it reinforces a whole bunch of popular and deeply held beliefs, without our necessarily knowing it? Popular and deeply held beliefs? What beliefs?

Belief 1: Cinderella could really happen.

People like the underdog. This TV series picks underdogs, weekly, and makes them instant winners. The recipients of the “makeover” see their house go from rags to riches in the matter of an hour. And you know, if it can happen to those people on ABC, maybe it could happen to me.

Belief 2: Good things happen to good people.

The subjects of EM:HE aren’t just underdogs, they’re almost invariably good people—people who help others, who value family, who are trying their hardest, but just can’t get ahead. This show gives them that helping hand, thus exhibiting that there is justice in the universe.

Belief 3: Individuality is important.

Not only are the subjects of this show good underdogs, they’re also interestingly unique people, just like you and me. A member of one family loves music. Another loves cars. Another wants to be a firefighter. Another loves a certain color. And the “design team” of the show takes these individualities into account, values them, and acts on them when building the family’s new house. Individuality is important.

Belief 4: It’s good to do good to others.

Really, this is the basis of the whole show—doing something nice for someone else. And why? Just because. Just because it’s nice, and you should do so.

Belief 5: Hard work pays off.

The designers, construction workers, et al., who work on the houses for this show, work very hard. They have one week to finish the entire house, and often (thanks, no doubt, to creative editing of the footage) come close to not finishing in time. But when that family returns to see the end result . . . all that hard work seems like nothing.

Belief 6: Be thankful for what you have.

When the house is finished, the families are thankful. Very thankful. But beyond the expected gratitude, there always remains a sense that the families would’ve been all right, even without the new home. There’s always a sense that the families were happy anyway, because they invariably valued what they already had.

These, at least, are the beliefs I see being affirmed by Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. There are more, I’m sure—just now, in fact, belief in the importance of family and home come to mind. And yes, I know that ABC makes it all come across this way. I know that the show is designed to have these themes. But you know, I’m all right with that. I’m comfortable with television’s role as “purveyor of cultural identity”—especially in instances like this, where I’m not being identified as something I’m not.

In other words, I already hold these beliefs, so I don’t mind watching a show that bandies them about and reinforces them. And I also am not threatened by the idea that I hold these beliefs, precisely because of television’s role. In fact, I hold these beliefs for reasons that have nothing to do with ABC, or TV, or the culture at large. I hold them because they’re all extrapolations of biblical principles—and the point is, I like shows about biblical principles. Maybe that’s why the show works so well . . . maybe lots of people, knowingly or not, like that kind of show.

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