I have long held a soft spot for Faking It, the 00s proto-reality series that was conceived as a modern-day Pygmalion. Twenty years ago, it saw people exchanging one job for another, though its idea of what constituted a polar opposite seems almost quaint now. There was a decorator trying their hand at fine art, a posh student who became a bouncer, a ballet dancer who turned into a wrestler. It was about learning new skills, but really, it was about participants experiencing a life that was unfamiliar, among people who were not necessarily like the people they already knew. It was a wholesome culture clash, with a little class war mixed in.
As with any long-retired television series that people remember with affection, here comes the reboot. TV revivals are often lazy, and tend to rely on nostalgia rather than quality to attract an audience. That may well be the reason people tune in, to begin with, but Faking It is such a solid idea that it still has plenty of the old charm left to spare. In fact, it may work even better now, in the fractious 2020s, than it did in the optimistic glow of the early 00s.
