Well, perhaps it will reappear in 2009, but C4 has taken the sensible decision to ‘rest’ Celeb Big Brother after this year’s race row, so no show next January.
There can’t be anyone in the modern world who didn’t hear about the rumpus in which Bollywood ‘star’ Shilpa Shetty (who, to my mind was almost as culpable with her sneering, aloof attitude) was abused and slurred by, among others, Jade Goody.
However, even though, CBB has produced some of the most memorable TV over the past 5 years, including George “Robotics” Galloway’s cat impersonation, Vanessa Feltz’s meltdown and Les Dennis crying, I doubt people will be that upset. The boredom and inanities of the show far outweigh the good bits.
Personally, I’ll be far more happy if they decide to “rest” the regular Big Brother – of course, Channel 4 rely on its viewing figures to keep up their share of the audience in the ratings battle with the other terrestrial channels, so they couldn’t possibly countenance such a popular move – it’s a show that past its sell-by date about five years ago.
The fact that it seems to be longer than the football season tells you much about the place it occupies in British society, but while approximately 20m people in the UK are interested in football, no more than 4m have any glimmer of interest in Big Brother.
Sadly, there haven’t been any similar rows or scandals during this year’s Big Brother, which probably goes some way to explain why it’s off most people’s radar – but then Channel 4 almost inevitably engineered it thus – so we can expect to see it back again next May, with the usual clutch of no-marks, who seriously think it will improve their life to spend a couple of months incarcerated with a similar group of eejits. Haven’t they learned yet?
