Wife Swap & Trading Spouses Two Shows, Four Wives, Lots of Cheese

ABC calls it Wife Swap. FOX calls it Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy. Whether it's called Wife Swap or Trading Spouses, a reality show about two moms taking over each other's families for a week is bound to have some conflict. TV audiences love conflict, especially when it's real. This seems to be the reason both Wife Sawp and Trading Spouses are both enjoying a second season.

Wife Swap, Trading Spouses. When the shows came out in 2004, there was a minor flap about the former - from ABC being ripped off by the creation of the latter - via FOX. In the 2005-06 season, both shows, like the swapped spouses they portray, have found a way to co-exist in their environments. While ABC might say the FOX version of the show - wherein two women - wives and moms - switch families for a short period of time - is sleazier than theirs is. That would be a very subjective estimation. Both shows feature over the top families clashing then bonding then clashing again for maximum dramatic - or melodramatic - reality TV value. Neither rises above the level of cheese.

The premise is simple. The networks get two wives so diametrically opposite that fighting and feuding are guaranteed to ensue, first, during the week when the wife must play by the "house rules" and then, during the week when the wife makes the rules the husband and kids must keep. Of course, the "opposite" aspect of the show is necessary to create the entertaining and enlightening conflict. If one's a racist, be sure the other wife is whatever race she doesn't like. If one's rich and anal, the other one lives in a mud hut and defecates on the floor. Well, that might be an exaggeration.

Not much of one though. The problem with the extremes of these families is often they're so outlandishly one way or the other, you don't like them. Occasionally, you will find one more agreeable than the other and cheer for her to convert the family. Often, though, you may find yourself wondering how anyone can live the way these people do.

To each their own, but, come on, with some of these people. You routinely have moms who don't let their kids play with other kids, or moms who don't clean house, ever, or moms who treat their husbands like slaves or allow their husbands to treat them like slaves. There's nothing normal about the people on this show, and most folks, I suspect, enjoy it the way you like a freak show, and not because it's relatable- or, they take comfort in watching people change.

And sometimes, they do change. When ABC made a big brohahah over FOX stealing the concept, their sticking point was as their show was helping people learn real life changing lessons while FOX was just showing freaks. Well, anyone who saw that large religiously insane woman going off on Trading Spouses in the fall of 05 may agree with the second assertion. But as for the lesson of the ABC show?

Almost every episode ends with the couples conferring and re-stating they don't agree with the way the other family lives. Sometimes, big fights ensue, even though ABC said it was going to tone it down this second season. But, on the ABC show, sometimes, you do see the families changing a little and they always "appreciate" each other more. Of course, it's much the same on FOX, but they also give the contestants money and make the visiting wife decide how it will be spent. Big stinking difference.

One complaint you could make about these shows,other than the fact they're really not the most flattering look at humanity, is that they involve kids. I don't know what an expert would say, but I'm pretty sure taking a mom out of the house for two weeks and putting some other mom in her place and allowing her to re-arrange everything as someone's filiming it- probably not the most conducive thing in the world in terms of child development. Teens, maybe it's a little easier for them to understand, but, how do you explain "Mom and Dad will do anything for money" to a six year old?

Whatever network you watch the rotating wives on, you will feel at least in agreement with their belief that there's no place like home.