The homesick and the sick home

Abstract

This short article explores the popular property renovation series DIY SOS: The Big Build (2010–present) to examine what it can tell us about the textual, affective and political modes of nostalgia on television. Inverting the homesick at the heart of nostalgia it considers, instead, the idea of the sick home by examining the ways in which the series represents and remedies lives affected by chronic illness and/or disability. The nostalgic promise of The Big Build is of a home to return to in the future and I argue that by placing the programme within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the series reveals a complex dynamic of loss and recuperation and a powerful nostalgic fantasy of community, care and (public service) television.