So it all finishes on Friday night. The final ever episode (so we’re promised) of one of the most enduring programmes ever to be presented to an unsuspecting public.
Big Brother finally shuts the doors on the house that has spawned more wannabes, morons and fame hungry embodiments of Andy Warhol’s prophecy than any other show in television.
And the sooner it’s over the better.
Having gone out with a whimper rather than a bang in the regular version of the show with Josie triumphing (waving the flag for overweight and insecure women everywhere) the makers of BB sought to sign off with what they called Ultimate Big Brother. This should have been more aptly renamed “Big Brother for contestants who need even more exposure than they got the first time and are willing to go through just about anything to get it” although I’ll admit that Ultimate Big Brother trips off the tongue a little easier. Especially when you have to shout it as Davina McCall invariably does. She has to shout of course because she’s normally surrounded by hordes of idiots who, as they couldn’t actually make it as contestants, are determined to try and get their faces on TV even if its only for a few seconds. They’ll be there on Friday night, filling the car park and crushing up towards the walkway that will greet each of the housemates (sorry, Ultimate Housemates) as they’re spewed out one at a time until the winner trots out to cheers, applause and photo deals with all the gossip mags and probably a book contract or record deal at the very least.
At the beginning, Big Brother was an interesting show. A genuine social experiment (and the place where current Ultimate Housemate Nick Bateman made his debut of course) but over the years it became nothing more than a prolonged audition for the people who entered. They didn’t care about the prize money. The only consideration for some of them was to become a well known enough to ensure invites to red carpet events and secure free admission to trendy nightclubs (such is the extent of the ambition of some that have passed through that accursed house) Others tried to use the programme as a launch pad to media fame and some of them managed it. Not in any lasting way thank God and, in five years time, will any of us remember Victor, Brian or the vile and loathsome Nikki? I doubt it. The incredibly talented Barry Humphries once defined a celebrity as “a non-entity that got lucky.” Spot on, I’d say.
If there’s any justice, the Big Brother house will collapse on the whole lot of them on Friday night in some kind of savagely ironic twist that will see them buried beneath the monster that spawned them.
This won’t happen of course, this is just a bit of wishful thinking from yours truly. What will happen is that we’ll be plagued by the house inhabitants for years to come instead of them sinking back into the black hole of obscurity that they so richly deserve to disappear into.
I’d like to see Chantelle win but my money is on Brian to scoop the title. And to be honest, as long as that foul creature Nikki doesn’t come first I couldn’t really care less. Should she win then I apologise in advance to my neighbours who will hear the sound of a television plummeting from a window around ten on Friday night when the decision is announced.
Happy viewing.
