A television certainty is that if a series proves a big hit, the other channels will produce their own clones, all produced with wide-eyed enthusiasm as if nobody ever thought of the idea before.
If airports are your thing, or gardening, or archaeological excavation or any number of other activities, you have a wide choice these days. The other channels are even considering 'Big Brother' clones after the remarkable success of Channel 4's dreary exercise in voyeurism earlier this year.
Doing well at present are interior decorating programmes: a house is either invaded, and decorated, by a team of experts or by the neighbours (in which case the owners of the house invade theirs in return). In programmes like 'House Invaders' and 'Changing Rooms', a lady presenter with bags of personality leads a team of skilled (and usually glamorous) labourers as they cut shapes out of MDF, stencil patterns on walls and do amazing things with fabric - all at breakneck speed, for the job has to be finished before the owners of the property return to see the result.
