Watch These Creative Television Shows

There are a bevy of home makeover shows, but there are at least three that have taken the same premise and flipped it into a show to equal great ratings. A&E's Flip This House is not to be confused with TLC's Flip That House (which, in turn, is almost exactly like TLC's Property Ladder), because they are still two different shows. All of these shows deal with flipping properties to make profit. But they're not the same. No, not at all.

Home makeover shows are all over TLC and Discovery Home programming - so much of it, in fact, that you can watch a home makeover show pretty much 24/7 if that's what you desire. But there are other makeover shows that might catch your fancy. Whatever you do, don't confuse TLC's What Not to Wear, a personal makeover show, with Ambush Makeover. Though in each show, the person being made over is surprised with a makeover and given new clothes, new hair, and professional make-up tips, then ending with a party thrown in the madeover person's honor, they're on different channels and aren't the same at all.

Programs on the Biography Channel may remind you of Lifetime's Intimate Portrait and E!'s True Hollywood Story, all of which showcase a star and tell that star's story in video clips and interviews with friends, family, and co-workers - but these are all separate shows in their own right, each on different cable channels.

CMT's Trick My Truck is a larger version of MTV's Pimp My Ride, but they're totally unalike because one deals with semi trucks and the other, regular automobiles. These shows are only slightly reminiscent of TLC's car makeover show, Overhaulin'...only slightly.

It all adds up to similar programming for us. If you're looking for a series called The Fabulous Life of...anything, you can check MTV, VH1, or even the Biography channel. The Food network often features shows that involve both eating and traveling, and the Travel Channel does the same. After a while, it begins to feel like you're watching maybe six different channels on your TV, instead of a hundred and nine (or whatever you've got).

The thing is, many cable channels are all owned by the same company. The same company that owns A&E also owns the Biography Channel and the History Channel. TLC, the Discovery Channel, Discovery Home, the Travel Channel, and Animal Planet are all part of the same cable family. MTV owns both CMT and VH1, among others. Some similarity on networks that belong to the same family is to be expected. Why not spread the wealth and see if other channels in the family could benefit from the same show? But when similar shows start springing up on unrelated channels, it seems odd. With all the competition for ratings and between networks, how could so much similarity on TV fly? Major networks like FOX and CBS aren't afraid to file lawsuits if they feel their successful shows have been copied onto competing networks, but with cable TV it seems anything goes and any show concept can be re-used countless times.

We get stuck watching similar shows on many different channels, while cable networks get to relax their creative muscles. The truth is that we love them, or else we wouldn't watch them. ...Right?