A new episode of “Dark Side of Reality TV” examines the original ABC show.
The Ty Pennington-hosted show aired for nine seasons, from 2003 to 2012, on ABC.
But two producers appeared, too, and had a different perspective.
Ty Pennington hosts an episode of ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’.ABC / courtesy Everett
And, you know, we can’t fix that kind of thing.
You know, at some point, the show must go on."
One such story was that of the Okvath family, who were on the second season.
‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ producer Emily Sinclair sits for an interview.Vice TV
She wanted to paint the walls, so they weren’t so drab.
They had no clue, even as they were being taken home in a limo with blacked-out windows.
It made the exhausted Kassandra carsick.
‘Dark Side of Reality TV’ features Kassandra Okvath.Vice TV
Kassandra adored her princess-themed bedroom.
“I will never ever, ever, ever til the day I die ever forget that feeling.”
Sinclair said that, for her, the reveal was the best part of her job.
Nichol Okvath said her “free” home left her family in a financial crisis.Vice TV
“I tell you, that moment never got old,” Sinclair said.
That was a drug that I did not wanna stop."
“It was an expensive house,” Nichol Okvath said.
Jeremiah Higgins talks about the heartache he went through on reality TV.Vice TV
“Our first electric bill was like $2,200, which was way more than our mortgage ever was.
And I about died.”
The Okvaths shut down part of their gifted home, and.
resorted to taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to hang on to the house.
Nichol estimated they “walked out with $8,000 of that house.”
gifted to them by the show.
The siblings said the show knew what was going on with them, but their episode aired again.
“We don’t have a place to stay, and we are… we’re kids.
The story is still running that we’re happy, that we’re living there.
People are seeing us jumping around, but yet we have nothing.”
“It sounded like it was just, you know, casting for the sake of a look.
Addis stood by the show’s good intentions.
“Does that make us bad?”
Still, Sinclair said she had a good feeling about what the team had done.
