[Brekkie]

Until you're woken up at 3.30am to leave in 20 minutes for a car ride that clearly happens 4 hours later.

[Andrew]

Until you're woken up at 3.30am to leave in 20 minutes for a car ride that clearly happens 4 hours later.

And then you design a product, sign it off, it’s gets made or printed or whatever and can’t possibly the changed

Then you do market research where everyone hates it

[Neil Jones]

The call at some unGodly hour of the morning and leaving 20mins later is real.
I think the establishing shot of the house in the dark is the artistic licence.

The show is filmed somewhere around May/June so its plausible there is daylight at 5am, much like there will be daylight after 9pm...

[Stooky Bill]

And then you design a product, sign it off, it’s gets made or printed or whatever and can’t possibly the changed

Then you do market research where everyone hates it

Yes that's one of the big flaws with the format, it's not the way anything is ever done in real life. You'd never simultaneously design a product and brand it, and even if you did those doing the two would be communicating constantly.

Then there's the idea of having to make and serve food and then get penalised because it looks awful. They're not in a cooking competition, in real life they'd be paying someone who knows what they are doing to make it for you.

[Brekkie]

And the paying £13 a head to buy the food then having to make it all from scratch yourself.

Obviously with reality TV things are easier when the environment is controlled but the show now exists in a world of it's own.

[Flux]

When they research candidates for programmes like this, do they actually 'vet' them? I'd assume they'd look through all public social media channels for anything 'questionable' before casting them.

I'm more concerned that the candidate is a medical doctor, while people can hold whatever views they want to provided they don't infringe on the rights of others, there are some roles where holding such extreme prejudicial views wouldn't be compatible and medicine is one of them.

To your question, yes, 100%. Candidates will be vetted and checked to make sure they are suitable for the show in more ways than one; but obviously there’s a limit to how thorough those checks can be especially if candidates lie or suppress information from their past/history.

As you say, it’s actually a bigger issue in real life in this situation given his chosen profession.

[JasonB]

Wasn't there a regular segment where some of the candidates be put on a shopping channel like QVC or Ideal World? I remember one year some candidates turned up live on Ideal World to sell a few things.

[Neil Jones]

Wasn't there a regular segment where some of the candidates be put on a shopping channel like QVC or Ideal World? I remember one year some candidates turned up live on Ideal World to sell a few things.

Yes but they haven't done that for a long time, although this might explain why:
www.youtube.com 

This video can only be viewed on YouTube.

[LondonViewer]

And the paying £13 a head to buy the food then having to make it all from scratch yourself.

Things like this are increasingly spoiling the show for me. Why not give them the freedom to shop for ingreedients or hire a cater. Shop on a budget and cook it yourself vs. pay more for a cater and the benefits that brings in customer satisfaction. Two teams potentially going different routes on a cost vs quality angle might make for an interesting task. Instead it's just ridiculous fake tasks designed to make them look dumb. I'm pretty sure that if they went for more realistic tasks, they'd still look dumb and get laughs.

[gottago]

Yes but they haven't done that for a long time, although this might explain why:
www.youtube.com 

They last did it in 2022 on TJC. Don't they normally do this challenge every other year for some reason so presumably it will return this year.