Wife Swap Australia

Wife Swap Australia (Premiere), 8.30pm, LifeStyle YOU
Read review here.

Freddie Flintoff versus the World, 8.35pm, SBS ONE
This action-packed series sees cricketing legend Freddie Flintoff try his hand at some of the most extreme challenges on offer. But he won’t be trying anything out without turning it into a competition, so he’s also enlisted other recently retired top athletes to see if they can beat him.

Smallville (Premiere), 9.30pm, ELEVEN
After receiving a spiked bottle of champagne from Zatanna, Lois and Clark lose their memories of their bachelorette/bachelor parties.

Becoming Chaz, 9.30pm, LifeStyle YOU
Read review here

Supernatural (Premiere), 8.30pm, ELEVEN
Bobby is close to dying. He must confront his worst memory to escape, before his reaper catches up to him.

Sunday, January 8th

LAST CHANCE SURGERY – BIO – Season One
5pm
Hosted by former Australian Medical Association president, Dr Kerryn Phelps, the series provides an insight into the cases of patients whose only chance of survival is major and potentially fatal surgery.

THE LITTLE COUPLE – BIO – Season 2
5.30pm
Picking up where season 1 left off, this series follows newlyweds Bill Klein, a successful businessman, and Jen Arnold, a neonatologist, as they embark on their life together. Both under 4 feet tall, they face not only the struggles of two little people.

BEDLAM: THE HISTORY OF THE BETHLEM HOSPITAL – HISTORY
7.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
This is the story of Bethlem Hospital, and how its patients have been viewed throughout history. Satirised over centuries as both a ‘human zoo’ and a ‘university of madness’ and, for 100 years, one of London’s leading tourist attractions.

Monday, January 9th

WIFE SWAP AUSTRALIA - LIFESTYLE YOU – Season One
LOCAL PRODUCTION
8.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
In this first episode of Wife Swap Australia we meet The Montfords. Self-made millionaires Simon and Stephanie push themselves and their three children to be the best they can be. Nicole and Trent Barry meanwhile live for the moment, putting no rules or expectations on their kids. The wives are swapping homes for seven days to see what it’s like living the other wife’s life and to learn a bit about their own.
Read review here.

BECOMING CHAZ – LIFESTYLE YOU
9.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
In Becoming Chaz we learn about the highly-emotional nature of the transgender process, through the eyes of Chaz Bono. Featuring an exclusive with Chaz’s mother, Cher, this documentary charts Chaz’s emotional and physical transition from woman to man. Read review here.

CROSSING THE LINE – CRIME & INVESTIGATION NETWORK – Season One
7:30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
Who would write a book describing how he murdered his romantic rival, or put sedatives in her husband’s strawberry milkshake only to bludgeon him to death? These shocking crimes reach beyond geographic borders, as well as the limits of reason. Two of these strange but true international crime stories remain unsolved, but all represent mysterious nightmarish situations with odd twists that evoke bewilderment.

OTTOMANS VS. CHRISTIANS: BATTLE FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN - HISTORY – Three-part Series
7.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
The Mediterranean Sea may be a beautiful tourist destination today but in the 16th century it was the central arena for an almighty power struggle between Christian Europe and the formidable Muslim Ottoman Empire. It was a conflict not just for power and wealth but for cultural and religious supremacy that lasted nearly three centuries and its outcome resonates to this day.

Tuesday, January 10th

INJUSTICE – W – Season One
7:30pm – Australian Premiere
Injustice is a complex, nail-biting drama… an examination of morality on many levels. James Purefoy stars as William Travers, a criminal barrister who is recovering from a traumatic series of events when he is drawn into a case that involves his old friend Martin Newall, who faces conspiracy and murder charges while at the same time being investigated by a vicious and vengeful detective DS Mark Wenborn. This five-part series takes the audience on a journey full of surprises until it reaches a devastating conclusion.

CHICAGO HOPE - 111 HITS – Seasons 1, 2 and 3
Weeknights at 11.30pm
This hit medical drama stars Mandy Patinkin, Hector Elizondo, Roxanne Hart and Peter MacNicol as top physicians, nurses and technical support staff working together in a high-tech, high-pressure Chicago medical center; where balancing personal and professional lives is part of the daily struggle.

Wednesday, January 11th

I SURVIVED…STORIES OF AUSTRALIANS – BIO – Season One
LOCAL PRODUCTION
8.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
This 8-part local series will profile the extraordinary stories of every day Australians who have overcome unbelievable and traumatic circumstances – with each person offering their own insight into the event that has now changed their life forever. I Survived…Stories of Australians will feature survivors of events including the Boxing Day tsunami, the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, the recent Queensland floods, the London and Bali bombings, the Port Arthur Massacre and the fateful Sydney to Hobart Yacht race in 1998.

RAISING BIPOLAR – BIO
9.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
In this intriguing documentary, our cameras follow a small community of mothers of bipolar kids as they juggle their multitude of medications, mood shifts, and far flung scheduling routines. Once isolated and completely helpless, these mothers of bipolar children are now finding solace for the first time in each other.

EVIL UP CLOSE – CRIME & INVESTIGATION NETWORK – Season One
7:30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
These are extraordinary crimes committed by ordinary people. Meet the neighbour who waves politely, the friend who is the life and soul of a party, the colleague who buys the coffee. All are ready to kill, rape, maim or harm. They live cheek by jowl with us; they look, sound and behave like us – but they are evil and their crimes have shocked the world. This series hears from the people who knew, loved or trusted those hunted for vicious crimes, of those who lived alongside, laughed with or felt the warmth of a monster – the wives and daughters, husbands and sons, the friends, neighbours, detectives and prosecutors who have eye-balled evil in the dock.

ROBERT BLECKER WANTS ME DEAD – CRIME & INVESTIGATION NETWORK
9:30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
An engrossing and often disturbing documentary that looks inside the puzzling and unlikely friendship between Robert Blecker, one of America’s most impassioned crusaders for capital punishment, and Daryl Holton, a mass murderer awaiting execution on Tennessee’s death row.

Friday, January 13th

THE L WORD - ARENA – Season 1
9:30pm
The first season of The L Word introduces us to Bette Porter and Tina Kennard, a committed couple who have decided to have a baby. Their neighbour’s girlfriend Jenny moves in and once she starts mixing with Bette and Tina’s friends, Jenny questions her sexuality. Bette’s sister Kim struggles with alcoholism while friend Dana struggles with combining her secret life as a lesbian with her professional life as a tennis player.

Saturday, January 14th

CONSPIRACY 365 – FMC
7pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
Adapted from the best-selling novels. This film (in a series) follows a year in the life of teenager Cal Ormond, who is forced to go on the run and become a fugitive as he searches for the truth behind a deadly family secret.

SOUTH KOREA: A NATION TO WATCH – HISTORY
3.30pm – Australian Exclusive Premiere
See how South Korea transformed into the economic miracle, its place in Asia today and why it is seen by many to be a nation at ‘the centre of the world’.

Wife Swap has had an Aussie makeover with Wife Swap Australia premiering on Monday night at 8.30pm on Lifestyle You.

Wife Swap is a reality television program, originally produced in the UK. It has been made and broadcast in the USA, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and  Italy – now it’s our turn.

In the programme, two families, usually from different social classes and lifestyles, swap wives/mothers  for a week. The programme will usually deliberately swap wives with dramatically different lifestyles, such as a messy wife swapping with a fastidiously neat one. Couples participating in the show do not share a bed with the “swapped” spouse while “swapping” homes.

During the first few days, the new wife must adhere to exactly the same rules and lifestyle of the wife she is replacing. Each wife leaves a house manual which explains her role in the family and the duties she holds. This almost always determines what rules the wives will apply at the “rules change ceremony”.

During the last days, the new wives are allowed to establish their own rules, and their new families must adhere to these new household rules. It usually takes a while for the families to adjust to this.

In the first episode of this series, we meet the two families that will be swapping lives – The Montfords and the Barry’s.

Simon and Stephanie Montford are self made millionaires that push themselves and their kids. They live in a waterfront mansion with fourteen (yes 14!) manicured lawns, a pool and gym. They also have 2 housekeepers, a gardener and a poolman to care for it. They have three children – Josh, Issac and Alex.  Josh is 17, thinks he’s funny and is a decent young man who concentrates on his studies, while Isaac is the youngest at 12 and does yoga 3 times a week plus soccer training twice and a soccer game each week.

Then we have the spoilt little rich girl Alex (who you will not forget in a hurry). At 15 Alex will only wear designer clothes – does ballet, pilates and has a personal trainer and she spends most weekends shopping with her mother, spending the dad Simons hard earned money that he works 70 hrs a week for. The only time they spend time together as a family is at their weekly training session.

Highschool sweethearts Nicola (pictured with the Montford family) and Trent Barry live for the moment and there are no rules or expectations on their two kids Ruby, 11 and cutie Griffin aged 7. They love body art, tattoos and heavy metal music. Trent works six days a week as a forklift driver just to make ends meet, while Nicola works two part time jobs – one as a supermarket milk stacker and the other as a seamstress from home. The children wear clothes from Vinnies and hand me downs and Nicola believes you don’t need the best of everything to be happy.

Needless to say it’s a culture shock for both women as they enter different worlds – I was especially happy that Nicola Barry got a nice house for a week. Nicola though, doesn’t feel welcome, especially when they say they were expecting someone like her – poor with tattoos! You can give people money but not always class is evident early with the Montford family. Stephanie Montford is shocked and mess and her words “filthy” lifestyle – They don’t concentrate on a perfect house (probably too busy working) and money and time are probably a factor.

The biggest changes are the budget increase/decrease for each wife. Nicola has gone from $120 a week to five times that – $600, while dear Mrs Montford has dropped from $600 to $120 (hahaha). The biggest awakening though is when Nicola must go shopping with Alex and sees the blatant disregard for the value of money that Alex has – while Nicola realises her monthly mortgage repayment is in the shopping bags.

When the wives make changes it’s for the best for both households in my opinion and as not to spoil it for the viewers will leave the specifics at that. Except for one specific line – when the changes are made Alex has to go with Nicola to St Vinnies to buy clothes for the family – well that brat comes back! “Vinnies is for people who are “POOR” and – makes me feel sick!”

Anyway you will have to watch to see if the women actually get along when they meet, what changes the families have implemented after participating in the show and if Alex learnt a lesson.

There are qualities of each family to disagree with and some to even connect with. This Aussie version is alot milder than some of the international episodes I have seen, from the USA especially. It’s more feel good, even though still gritty at heart. I much prefer what this show teaches us and I think that the word balance and everything in moderation is the best way to live, and happily.

Wife Swap Australia airs on Mondays at 8.30pm on Lifestyle You.