Liveblog: Fresh TV from Around the World

Following a special Canada-focused Fresh TV this morning, The WIT‘s Virginia Mouseler returned for her beloved biannual session, which surveys new TV shows, based on her company’s analysis of “the best TV and digital content” from around the world.

The running theme of this year’s shows can be summed up in an irreverent hashtag for this session: #GMOOH!, which stands for “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” — out of the crisis, out of this mess, out of the recession, and out of my life, quipped Mousseler in a tone that was only half-joking. (We can also attest that mums were a strong theme too.)

A taste of what’s hot right now, worldwide:

Hotel GB (Optomen Int’l, UK): TV personalities take over a hotel and convert it into a fundraising “machine” and training ground for unemployed members of society.

Secret Interview (Group M, UK): Under the impression they’re filming a documentary, contestants are actually being evaluated by potential employers. Undercover actors test their competences while their prospective bosses watch “their every action, every word” without their knowledge. The prize: “the job of a lifetime”.

Show Me Your Money (WBITD, UK): Employees reveal their salaries to each other, unveiling huge inequalities between them. The challenge: staff must come up with a new pay scheme which is fair to all but doesn’t increase the salary budget.

Taming of the Shrew (WBITD, UK): Eight young women sentenced to imprisonment get to play roles in a Shakespeare play, rewritten as a rock musical. Meanwhile, they live together and get coaching in a house where they must confront their behavioural delimmas.

Mum, Vote For Me! (The Global Agency, Spain): Singers compete in a talent show, where the judges are made up of their mothers. Mothers must guess their child’s voice, score and promote them.

Jewish Mum of the Year (Shine Int’l, UK): Mums compete in challenges to test their skills in cooking, matchmaking, homemaking, event organising and how well they know their kids.

Supermarket Superstar (All3Media, USA): Home cooks compete to have a favourite family recipe sold in a supermarket. Industry experts mentor the contestants to help them achieve this goal.

The Taste (Red Arrow, USA): Culinary mentors select 4 cooks by “blind tasting” a spoonful of their food. They then coach them and prepare them for cooking challenges, judged by taste alone. Who’ll finish the best cook by pure merit of the senses?

Lovetown USA (BBC Worldwide, USA): in this social experiment about “the possibilities of all kinds of love”, relationship experts try curing a small town of its drama — and pairing up its singles — within 30 days.