Home repair television shows are on an incline. People seem to enjoy seeing homes restored, remodeled, and destroyed. There are virtually no channels on television that do not have some sort or home repair show.
Consider the differences in the shows While You Were Out and Trading Spaces. The While You Were Out staff has a pretty specific mission, to redecorate a single room of an in unsuspecting person's house. This is accomplished be an accomplice and certain people who know what is going on and arrange for a way for the homeowner to be gone for forty-eight hours. The accomplice will remain in the house to assist the designers. The While You Were Out staff will have a fictional cameraman follow the homeowner in order to keep tabs on him and gather intelligence about him, also this setup allows the host to test the accomplice. He will be asked questions about the homeowner in order to win prizes that will not come out of the budget. This is to test how well he really knows the person whom he is doing this for. All of this is performed on a budget of $1,500.
The cast for While You Were Out includes the host, who challenges the organizer with questions and pulls the team together. A designer provides the design and directions for what will be needed and accomplished. Two carpenters make the new design reality. Last, but not least, the initiator; the person who has agreed to surprise the homeowner will work with the team to create the new design.
The show concludes as the design team waits in the redesigned room. The nervous and excited accomplice waits for the homeowner to return. The homeowner unsuspectingly enters the room to be greeted with a newly designed room and the While You Were out staff. It is the homeowner's chance to test his or her knowledge about the accomplice. The final questions are asked to the homeowner, "Why did this person want to do this for you?" With the correct answer the room is complete and the show ends with tears and joy, laughter, shock, anger, or resentment.