I’ve never hated or enjoyed a TV show as much as Send Nudes – it’s pure chaos

Watching people vote on whether a perfect stranger needs plastic surgery is dreadful… in theory, writes Amanda Whiting. In reality, she was seduced

Vogue Williams is presenting new series Send Nudes for E4 (E4)

The sound a person makes when faced with a life-size, three-dimensional, microscopically accurate digital reproduction of his or her own naked body is: “Oh my God”. How did I glean this morsel of insight into the human experience, you may wonder? From watching Send Nudes, a show so ecstatically unhinged that it has seduced me into rethinking some of my most fundamental beliefs.

I had a suspicion that I would hate Send Nudes, the Channel 4 series that invites a group of 50 people to vote on whether or not a complete stranger should get plastic surgery – and it turns out I do.

I hate that it glorifies cosmetic surgery as a shortcut to self-acceptance. I hate that it encourages people to nitpick their capable bodies. I hate that a gaggle of talking heads zoom in and out on nudes of the contestants, before issuing their own opinion on what a human being (who they have never, ever met) should do with their one and only mortal husk.

It’s the basest form of reality television, the kind that looks as cheap as it feels. Yes, I hate everything about Send Nudes… except, it seems, watching it. I like watching it a lot.

The show is pure chaos and absolutely hilarious. Before contestants appear on it – like 48-year-old carpenter Steven, who moonlights as a porn star – they pose in a 160-camera chamber that creates a comprehensive CGI rendering of their naked bodies. Later, on air, host Vogue Williams and each contestant stare at the avatar, eventually enlarging the problem area. Steven, for example, hates the decidedly average length of his flaccid penis.

Cosmetic surgeons then perform virtual consultations, which include unforgettably graphic manipulations of the contestant’s avatar to match the procedures recommended. We watch Steven’s penis grow longer, inching ever closer to the ground; we watch it fold nearer to his balls due to the hypothetical snipping of the suspensory ligament. We ask ourselves: why would a nice man like Steven go on this absurd show? We try to ignore the harder question: why are we watching it?

And then – and I swear I (theoretically) hate this part the most – the contestants send their “before” and “after” nudes to a misfit group that includes comedians, drag queens, an influencer, a model, a former Miss Great Britain, a woman named Chanelle, and also Chanelle’s gran. Prior to the big vote, they pore over the pictures like they’re trying to find Wally.

‘Send Nudes’ with Vogue Williams (Channel 4)

These talking heads – at least the ones who appear in the first episode – are exceptionally cast. They’re warm and giddy. They’re very affirming of the “before” pics and avoid too much comparison talk. When a YouTube personality is shown a nice new pair of titties for 31-year-old mum Stephanie, he doesn’t simply say they’re better; he shouts triumphantly into his iPhone that “THESE ARE THE ONES”. His anti-surgery counterpart declares, “The sag is sexy.”

Williams is preternaturally sunny given her show’s dark premise, and it helps keep things light that contestants aren’t actually offered any plastic surgery on the show. They go home with a more precise idea of what their bodies could look like and some hasty exit polling.

I won’t spoil whether Steven opts for the penis he knows or the one he calls “a daddy” when the plastic surgeon presents it. But I think the thing I hate most about Send Nudes, in the end, is the part of me that desperately wants more “after” photos. I want to know which contestants opted to go under the knife and how it changed them. And I want to know if any of them found self-acceptance through an even more dangerous route than cosmetic surgery: appearing on reality TV.