God's Gift (1996–1998) User Reviews

Honest-to-goodness late night trash

[srck · 7/10 · 25 May 2006]

Airing in the small hours of the night, Davina McCall presented 'God's Gift' - a cross between the ubiquitous 'Blind Date' format, and a 24-pack of beer. A studio audience composed of excitable 18-24 year old women would pass judgement on four young men performing a tournament of challenges to prove their worth and that they were 'God's Gift to women' - "the twelve tasks of Hofmeister" sort of thing. The challenges included a feat of strength, joke telling, dancing, and so forth, and the contestants were whittled down round-by-round. Finally the audience would select their winner, who would choose a woman from the crowd with whom to have a date. A la Blind Date, Davina would feature highlights from their (invariably chaotic) date in each subsequent show.

'God's Gift' was by no means quality television, but its strength lay in the fact that it knew it wasn't, and was honest about the fact that it was post-nightclub/drinking television for post-nightclub/drinking people. Davina McCall (now more famous for her matriarch role on the UK's 'Big Brother') was the mother-hen to the often uncontrollably animated audience, herding them from corner to corner, and performed admirably, making a pretty dreadful lowest-common-denominator format quite watchable.

It was cheap and it made you laugh, and as 1996 3am television goes, it was all the more watchable for that refreshing honesty.

From what I remember, it wasn't that bad!

[joshman-1 · 5/10 · 28 July 2006]

Well, I was the target audience for this show, being young, usually drunk and awake (kind of). And it worked for me! It was cheaply made, with a very, very lurid set and the sort of girls in the audience that would scare the bejesus out of you if you were sober, but it was fun, and it was when Davina wasn't so ubiquitous and overexposed, which was cool! Of course, my memories could be coloured by the passage of time and the effects of alcohol. The tasks were, obviously, crap and cringe inducing, and most of the girls I lived with spent the half hour ripping the p**s out of the blokes, but thats the whole point of shows like that! It's never coming back, at least not as I remember it, but if it does crop up on cable or sky, check it out. But only if you are drunk.

Trash,but at least slickly made trash

[BJJManchester · 4/10 · 10 June 2007]

Out of mid 1990's UK Late Night TV hell came GOD'S GIFT from the usually more conservative,cautious GRANADA TV studios,based in my hometown of Manchester.It was probably a good idea that Granada produced this kind of malarkey,and it was also a better idea that the programme was mostly scheduled in the late night/early morning timeslot at weekends,just the right time for hopelessly inebriated young people arriving home from various drunken revels,as these would be the only types of rather cerebrally-challenged humanity that would like it.In that sense,GOD'S GIFT served it's purpose efficiently,in parading young men in front of a mostly unimpressed (if themselves not inebriated) standing audience of young women,carrying out various base,lowbrow tasks,finishing with an inevitable striptease,though not to the barest of bare essentials;that would've been too low a point even for the programme's crashingly gross standards of entertainment on offer.

GOD'S GIFT was as subtle as frantically banging a nail into a wall with your forehead,but,it's one marginal saving grace was that at least it was perfectly aware that it was just so,with it's set design as tacky and campy as the various incidents on show.Just to even up things slightly,there were occasional shows featuring homosexuals,which was OK for sexual equality,but would no doubt have had finger-wagging puritan moralists in ferocious outrage.

With all this associated baggage,it was almost a parody of a parody of stupid TV shows,not really a good idea as parodies are not intended to be clever or intellectual works of art in the first place.In this period,it was perhaps mildly amusing to hear the voices of familiar TV and radio presenters like Stuart Hall,and later Jimmy Saville,as the 'voice' from above, though revelations of their sordid sex crimes in recent years against under age girls and young women have rendered that totally extinct (Savile died before he could be put on trial, Hall is now serving a jail sentence) and the first major occasion that a certain Davina McCall presented a TV show on terrestrial TV in Britain.Her notorious loud-mouthed,barking,over-amplified presenting and interviewing style seemed to fit in perfectly with GOD'S GIFT crude unsubtlety,but since it has been exposed to a larger audience at more sociable times of day (BIG BROTHER,DAVINA,etc.),and to more desperately unenthused TV critics (GOD'S GIFT was more or less totally ignored by such types),it has not been at all plain sailing despite rather curiously becoming one of UK TV's best-known faces in the 21st Century. Davina in fact was so associated with the show that it soon went downhill with new presenter Claudia Winkleman and soon ended it's run.It is not saying much,but this is probably nearest the best show La McCall has,and ever will,be associated with.But it's doubtful she will talk about this show much nowadays,and if it is true that GOD'S GIFT will be looked on as her small screen pinnacle,think of the other programmes she's worked on since.

The much less explicit but still as lowbrow MAN O MAN (featuring Chris Tarrant),which had similarities to GOD'S GIFT,was made around the same era(the mid-late 90's),but was shown at a much more family friendly time of day on Saturdays.

RATING:3 and a half out of 10.

Tongue in Cheek, Honest, Silly fun.

[dacanesta · 9/10 · 28 January 2022]

This show just popped back into my head. Late night staple (as in like 1am start or something back when there was actually bizarre but very watchable stuff on TV for us night owls) in the mid 90s, this was presented by 2 people who went on to forge very good careers for themselves, and watching it back (there are 3 or so episodes I've found online plus clips) you can see they are natural talents.

It's hard to review because yes, its trash, but it's not 'so bad its good' type. It knows what it is, and for me I think the people who will get thr most out of it are intelligent people (like me ;)) because the contestants are crowd often dont cover themselves in intellectual glory, and Davina/Claudia seem to know this and make occasional references that go over everyones head except ours, and so it ends up being a cringeworthy (in a good way), bizarre, funny little show, and the hour long runtime flies by. In recent watching, it still holds up! Itd just genuinely funny watching men have 30 seconds to chat someone up, or recreate a sexy ad by popping their pants in a tumble drier. Maybe it's best to sum up with 'it sounds awful, it kind of is awful, but it knows it's awful, but when you watch it you'll see overall its the opposite of awful!'. Its great, I just wish I could get more episodes but there was an issue with the announcer and so I think they're now unavailable. Find it in the usual video places!