RobustRutabaga

Very nice read. Thanks for that! Speaking of Matt, I remember when he stayed the night at one hoarder's home for an episode. Here's a July 2014 lecture clip of him talking about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOJEuJixCMw

Oh man, now that you pointed that out I can't unsee it! You are right! 🤣 "Say, Doc...were you by chance passing through this neck of the woods in your travels a few decades back...?"

Ah, cool. Did anyone here read Matt's 2011 book, "The Secret Lives of Hoarders"? I signed it out from the local public library at one point as I was mainly curious how he might spin his experiences into a book format. Nothing too earth-shattering there, but an okay idea to capitalize on his name recognition. I have not yet read Dr. Tonya Harding's book, apparently also from 2011, though.

Oh yes! 😄 I colloquially call that "the table saw". It's not part of that audio package that the Youtube clip from its makers was showing off, but I know exactly what you mean and liken it to someone sending wood through a table saw with its "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" squelch. Inevitably they combine that with a sped-up, time-lapse version of trucks arriving (and now often shot with drone photography - first time I started seeing that I thought, "They're getting fancy! How upscale..."). The show's entire sound and music package is effective but I'll be darned if it doesn't sound like it belongs in the next "Mad Max" movie installment as underscore.

I have to say that those piano-note stingers (heard here starting at the 25 second mark) always crack me up. Nothing wrong with the musical idea - simple, short, effective - but it's so cold and stark and hopeless - sounds like it should be in a post-apocalyptic thriller with characters looking out drearily on the morning sun cast across a deserted wasteland for any sign of anything - human life, food, animal or plant life. There's also roughly a metric ton of excessive audio processing on what started as a lone piano key strike but finishes as a lot of reverb and delay and frequency-boosting cranked WAY up to "11" to add to the hopelessness. Geez. All they need is some 4-year-old's voice with equally added reverb crying out faintly, "Mommy?!". I give them credit, though - you can hear those stingers from another room and know what show it is. Anyway, they seem to be used a little more sparingly this season but I'm thinking it's because we're not toggling between two subjects per-episode. Personally I'd enjoy maybe an April Fool's Episode where Dr. Tonya Harding, Lurch and others do A-cappella re-creations of them - Pentatonix style!

Yeah, it's not the most intuitive and I had to check it just now to make sure I was correct. I know it came coined from the old "Television Without Pity" forum days - and stands for "black screen of judgment" or "black screen of justice". 😁 Those stark, text-on-screen updates. The "BSOJ" is even listed in somebody's dissertation (bottom-numbered page 105 here) on "Organizing the American Domestic Interior, 1978-2010". You know a term has made it when its reached not just pop culture but academia! ☺️ The context is: "At the end of the episode, an inter-title informs viewers of the less-than-impressive outcome of the intervention: “After ten hours the cleanup crew is leaving for the day. Linda has cleared part of one room. Six people worked 10 hours in Linda’s 2000 sq foot home…only one room was cleared.” The inter-title confirms the viewer’s suspicion that the narrative will reach no satisfactory end, promoting a sense that the project undertaken by the show far exceeds the expectation of the usual home makeover format. In acknowledging the frustration of leaving the episode’s narrative incomplete, the show re-emphasizes its clinical perspective on clutter—no matter how fast we want it to go away, this issue is out of our hands."

Thanks for this! Google Street View has a 2009 image and the property looks in better shape. Really emphasizes the downward spiral the conditions can take over the years for situations like this.

😁 I stumbled on this thread the other day and am happy to see some of the nicknames from the old "Television Without Pity" forums thread on "Hoarders" being faithfully carried on! They cracked me up - Dr. Michael Tompkins only being referred to as "Lurch" for example. 😂