let’s get rid of the pregnant pause

Let’s get rid of the pregnant pause. Why is it that we have to have this stupid long gap between the words “And the winner is” and telling who it is. Ok, I can understand the desire to introduce some drama, but we have gone from about a 5 second pause to well past 20 seconds on some shows and it is just silly.

You will soon be able to go out and make a cup of tea in the interval; in fact I’m surprised that they haven’t started introducing a commercial break into the gap. Not only is it unnecessary, but what a waste of time that could be used to give us a bit more action.

Something else that I’ve noticed on these competitive shows, and it goes on on both sides of the Atlantic, is that the result, when you do eventually get it, does not seem consistent with what we’ve heard in the judges summing up. You’ll listen to their comments and think that this must between Doreen and Harry, because Hilda has no chance, but then you’ll hear “And the winner is (four hours later) Hilda!”

I can understand why they want to keep the suspense going and not give away who has won, so why waste time showing us deliberations and comments that are intended to mislead us? You could just give us some straight feedback on what they are judging after you’ve told us who has won.

And wasting time is where we get another worrying factor, the preview and catch up segments. Have you noticed how shows will start off by giving you some snippets of what is to come during the programme and then have a bit of a review session part way through? In a notionally 30 minute slot where you would expect to get about 27 minutes plus the start and finish credits you only get about 20 minutes now with the rest being recycled material (maybe that’s it; doing this counts towards their environmental targets).

Given the general dumbing down of programmes maybe the makers do think that their audiences are stupid, and the dearth of intelligent programmes does make you wonder, but some of us would like to be treated with respect.

So get rid of the pregnant pause, the previews and reviews and let us have our money’s worth.