Celebrity Big Brother 2009 (Channel 4)
The Who’s Who of “Who They?” is Back to Take Over our Lives
Jan 2, 2009
The “celebrity” version of the UK’s most successful and ultimately annoying reality TV series is back after a one year hiatus following the worldwide row that started when Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty ended up being unfairly bullied by jealous idiots led by Jade Goody. That overblown event meant the rest of us could sleep safely in our beds at night knowing that our existence will be plagued by one less ZZZ-list snoozefest (quite fitting that this year’s series is sponsored by bed specialists Dreams).
But Channel 4 cannot afford to sacrifice one of its cash making cows, especially one that brings them so many column inches in red top tabloids and so much free publicity when another controversy sets off.
Mini Me, a Page 3 Model and that Bloke off The Word
CBB usually follows the reality TV rule by gathering 80s has-beens wanting to reinvigorate their flagging career and a bunch of nobodies whose claim to fame was sitting next to somebody who once has a conversation with Timmy Mallett’s next door neighbour’s gardener. Then there’s the random US entrants whose sole existence is to gain transatlantic attention.
This year’s housemates appear to follow the same formula with La Toya Jackson, another dreary member of that family and one who seems to have borrowed her more famous younger brother’s nose, Mini Me from Austin Powers, who could be an early favourite, and egomaniacal former rap star Coolio all making the flight from the States.
Representing the Brits are one of the Sugababes, thingy from Liberty X, an ex-con turned politician, a bland boy band muppet turned bland song-writing muppet, Terry “I used to present The Word ya know” Christian, likeable actress Tina Malone – AKA the scary Maquire mum from Shameless - Daily Star page 3 favourite Lucy Pinder, and weathergirl turned panel game captain and former Sven Goran Eriksson bed sharer Ulrika Jonsson.
Coolio not Recognising Anybody Except Himself
Being the first episode not much happened except everyone turned up and some didn’t know who the others were, the fickle audience travelled all the way to the house just to boo everyone and Davina...MCCALL kept shouting a lot. While we’re on the subject can just stop being so randomly LOUD? At this rate at least 50% of viewers will suffer from perforated ear drums by the end of the 22 days.
The only funny thing so far was that Coolio spent the first hour looking dazed and confused and not recognising anybody except himself. But the choice of celebrity is a bit admirable for a Big Brother collective as there are few people who look to start a fight, unless they decide to introduce the Gallagher brothers in some strange secret task on day 10.
Leo Sayer going Mental over some Underpants and Vanessa Feltz just going Mental
Over the years, though, Big Brother has lost its way. It used to be an opportunity to reduce slightly famous faces to humiliated wrecks; in fact the first outing was actually done in aid of Comic Relief. Jack Dee remains as one of the only entrants to actually leave the show with any dignity as his constant escape attempts not only won him the original series but are still the most entertaining scenes in CBB history.
But of course there’s the car crash element that everybody wishes for on any live show and when you’re dealing with unnecessarily huge egos it’s bound to kick off at some point. That’s why you end up with the likes of Leo Sayer going mental over some underpants, John McCririck going mental over Diet Coke or Vanessa Feltz just going mental.
The producers of BB are constantly vying for any new gimmick that will lure in unsuspecting viewers who instead of watching a so-called social experiment end up seeing talking cardboard boxes or the group of people pretending to be in bizarre prison that’s like something out of a Ken Russell film, albeit a very boring one.
Celebrity Big Brother 2009 is on Channel 4 every night at 9pm, endlessly shown on E4 and taking over a newspaper front page near you for what could be an eternity.
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