Why Who Do You Think You Are died the day we all became Danny Dyer’s cousin
over 4 years in The guardian
The show lost the plot when the EastEnders star became royally related
TV producers love crying celebrities. Whether it’s Halle Berry at the Oscars or Cheryl Tweedy on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, famous tears are ratings gold. If they could broadcast a show where Gazza was forced to chop onions while watching Terms of Endearment, they would. And you’d watch. You’d demand looping gifs, follow-ups and escalations involving kittens. Sadly, they can’t do that. So they have to think of less obvious ways to jerk the tears. And Who Do You Think You Are? is a prime example of that.
The premise is simple: get a famous person, with the help of local historians and genealogists, to research their family history in the hope of discovering something interesting. What they mainly discover is that people born in the 19th century are dead and then use this to unashamedly pull on the heartstrings of that week’s celebrity. The show may like to sell itself as a serious historical exercise, but really it’s just an excuse to see how many consumption-prone distant relatives it takes to make JK Rowling cry. Continue reading...
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