The BBC billed the series as their take on the genre of "structured reality" with added laughs. So you could perhaps say that it's part TOWIE, part Pineapple Dance Studios with a bit of BBC Three humour thrown in for good measure.
© BBC / Knickerbockerglory
But anyone who has seen the weirdness of Boom Town can tell you that this doesn't even cover half of it.
The premise of the series is that we get to meet "real people" in a fictional town. However, this is BBC Three and this is the TV genre that gave us Geordie Shore, TOWIE and Made In Chelsea, so don't go expecting to recognise any "real people" that you'd have in your Facebook friends list or school/college/office.
© BBC / Knickerbockerglory
There is no Bob the accountant who enjoys playing cricket at the weekend, or Sandra the hairdresser who enjoys socialising and pop music.
However, there is a nerdy pair of Pot Noodle-loving wannabe super-heroes from Salford.
There is also Talina the Temptress, a peroxide blonde Russian who believes she can win any man over with her charms. Her charm essentially involves over-the-top lips licking and speaking in broken English and Carry On euphemisms.
© BBC / Knickerbockerglory
She is relatively normal compared to "ladies' man" Jonny Na$h (apparently that's how you spell it), whose best killer chat-up line involves having a 10-inch ruler tattoo (you already know the punchline).
A nervy trainspotter, a witch, and someone called Cream the Rapper are also among the other oddballs and misfits.
Just like every other structured reality show, the people involved are desperate and willing to do just about anything to extend their camera time. In the case of Boom Town, that is taken to the extreme with the sorts of people who you move seats to avoid on the bus all thrust together into one 30-minute show, competing for your attention.
Some of the segments/sketches (I'm not sure what to call them) are obviously set up and orchestrated for comic potential, but I can't have been the only viewer scratching my head as to what was happening and cringing rather than sniggering.
I wouldn't say that I hated the show, but I never laughed once and found myself un-tensing my buttocks repeatedly as the cringe-worthy "wacky" sorts did their thing.
© BBC / Knickerbockerglory
During my time at Digital Spy, I've attended quite a few audition days for shows such as Big Brother and X Factor and you often stumble upon self-proclaimed eccentrics, who sport silly haircuts, don 'mad' outfits and are willing to jump when you say go.
In every instance, these I'm-mad-me characters are nowhere near as interesting, funny or quirky as they believe they are and are thoroughly dull to spend time alongside. Watching the characters in Boom Town brought back many memories of early mornings in the queues with BB hopefuls.
I won't condone BBC Three for the show, because it's trying something different, they took a gamble and it's certainly not like anything else on TV right now. But I'd be grateful, for all our sakes, if Boom Town remained a one-off and disappeared into a forgotten TV wasteland, packaged up clearly as TV experiment that went very, very wrong.
What did you think to Boom Town? Was it a brave experiment or a ludicrous waste of time? Have your say
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