Big Brother

Big Brother is on again, dragging me down the filthy rabbit hole which is reality television.

I'm somewhat ashamed to say it, but Big Brother is the only show I ever make the effort to watch as it is broadcast.
The appeal? Well, it has to be my long-standing love of insulting jerks.

After the last couple of uninspiring seasons - I gave up on the last one midway through - this one has me jazzed enough to tune in.
Faced with flaccid ratings Big Brother started filling each year with more and more 'outlandish' stunts while filling the house with increasingly beautiful housemates. It was a disaster, culminating in last year's trainwreck in which twelve beautiful surf enthusiasts sat around for three months without any conflict or insight, while they completed forced, dull tasks.

See, the joy of Big Brother is in the audience being able to be dicks. If I and everyone I know watch along, we get three glorious months were we can mercilessly slag off a group of 'familiar' people guilt-free.

The strength in the format has always been in conflict between housemates. Throw a bunch of random people together, lock the doors, hope they have little in common and wait for sparks to fly.

And this year that's what we've got. The new hosts are good as they remove Gretel from my screen, but they, much like the weekly tasks and Friday Night Live, add little. For the record, Mike Goldman is good when he's discussing the show, but during Friday Night Live he's a nightmare. Likewise for Ryan and Bree. Both might as well flank Goldman and just say "pre-written gag #6. Delivered without gusto." We are not watching for these people.

Big Brother Big Mouth, however, is a great show. It's a panel of people discussing the people in the show without bias. Love it. Proper discussion and analysis that doesn't come from people hoping the voting doesn't go a certain way with ratings in mind. It also shows the housemates having those conversations unsuitable from primetime. Regardless of nudity, Big Brother Uncut was always valuable as it provided a complete picture of the contestants. Deprived of that, we only saw their PG selves and that somewhat invalidated the entire concept.

So I'll be watching this year.