Really Puzzling…

Tonight I caught “The Great American Handyman” for the first time–catching the “final five” competitors, and found the show to be a real puzzle. These are the “final five”? I mean, really. Given a timed task, “fixing” a broken window in 30 minutes, all of them tanked at least one aspect. Break the glass time and again! “Handymen” who don’t know how to cut glass?!? Dropping a pane out (and breaking it) because no glaziers’ points used? What?!? *sigh* I mean, come on! One guy did a decent job, even after screwing up the glass cutting a few times. Another guy did an almost decent job after darned near filling a dumpster with broken glass… *sigh*

Then, 30 minutes to roof a doghouse. Piece of cake. Not for these guys. *profound sigh* All awful. Absolute fails.

Installing a toilet?!? Just about the easiest plumbing job there is. Easier, IMO, than installing a new sink and far, far easier than installing a new water heater, for some common examples. Did these guys do decent toilet installations? None of ’em did installations I’d want in my home. Some of the installations were disastrous.

And these were the five finalists*. No wonder so many folks are so often disappointed with handymen and contractors and such. Heck, I don’t know much more about such things than I was taught by my grandfather (the “more” mostly having to do with power tool use, since he never owned a single power tool), but still, just tagging along as a kid, I picked up more than these guys apparently know–enough tat calling in a handyman to do things around twc central is more a matter of my time than skill set.

OK, I’ll grant you, ONE of the guys is pretty close to OK in his skill set, and shows evidence of thinking things through a bit, but one out of the “final five”? Says a lot about previous episodes’ contestants, doesn’t it? How in the world were these contestants chosen, really?

*Actually, by the time the show got to the three event “obstacle course” one of the five had already–with extreme justice–been eliminated.