"...you, the viewer, are actively choosing to spend 60 minutes watching a glossy-looking soap opera performed by non-actors half-improvising a non-script. It's precisely like a scene from an old-school porn film in which a plumber and a frustrated housewife trade clunky dialogue, but with better lighting and no onscreen sex." Certainly sums up The Only Way Is Essex well enough.

The whole Scottish man pretending to be a Syrian lesbian thing passed me by, though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/28/charlie-brooker-guide-2011-buzzwords