Big Brother: Timebomb

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]enjamin Franklin, founding father of the United States and famous stormy weather kite flyer, once said that death and taxes were the only two things to be certain in life. Were he alive today, he would almost certainly have added a third thing to that list: the annual edition of Big Brother polluting the airwaves like some sort of killer virus.

Since its UK inception in 2000, we have been subjected to fifteen series of the inane drivel, and now we have been blessed with a sixteenth.

Entitled Timebomb, the premise of this series (according to the official claptrap) is that the sentient Big Brother house will “play with the concept of time. Days will turn into nights and time will stop” (as any viewer of any previous series can testify). How this will work in practice is mostly unknown, but at the moment, it has manifested as clock-faced wallpaper.

Personally, I’m hoping for something akin to Guantanamo, with the sensory deprivation causing the concept of time to skew massively, but I suspect that may not be the case

The Big Brother house of 2013. Photo: Flickr / Diamond Geezer

A safe assumption is that it will function mostly as it has done in previous years – boring people will sit around in a house, doing nothing but fighting and sleeping with each other, the tedium shattered only by visits to the diary room and the occasional command from the house’s omnipresent Geordie tone. The press description does say that time “may run out” for some contestants though, so there’s every chance of a bloody climax.

The joy of this show used to be that it worked as an interesting social experiment – ordinary people would go into the house: we would get to see them, watch them interact, and it was a fascinating view. However, as time went by, the people stopped being ordinary, replaced instead by desperate fame-hungry weirdoes, with no particular talents outside breathing, and no charisma to speak of. They see the house as an excuse to act out, begging for any form of press coverage so they can continue a career in fame that is not justified in any respect.

With that in mind, let’s meet this year’s contestants…

Emma Willis, one of the presenters for Big Brother: Timebomb. Photo: Flickr / Ibsan73

They are radio star Kieran (Terry Crews), Sarah (generic woman mark four), Nick (posh type, punchable face), Danny (a fusion between The Only Way is Essex and a bland catalogue model), Harriet (she wants Alan Carr to play her in a movie of her life – draw your own conclusions from that), Jade-Martina (Irish Daisy Duke), Simon (Baldy McDickface, or Egghead from the Adam West version of Batman), Chloe (who thinks Big Brother is a gap year for chavs – typical Friday night wastrel), Joel (a big-eared Apprentice-type dick), Adjoa (a sort-of budget Naomi Campbell), Aaron (Shayne Ward, a man whose level of success he will equal), Eileen (a walking, talking Andrew Lloyd Webber-ette), twins Amy and Sally (pfft), Cristian MJC (aka Matthew Clarkson, and the fact that he uses such a ridiculous pseudonym tells you all you need to know there), and Jack (Peter Kay, but somehow with less charisma). I’d say remember those names, but what would be the point?

So, the series kicked off in style (ha!) with Simon being evicted before he even made it into the house. If the rest of the series is as shocking and as gripping as that twist was, there’s absolutely no way you could fail to be enthralled, especially with Emma Willis and Rylan Clark (two of the most boring people on television) on hosting duties.

Big Brother continues to limp on, a dying monster that refuses finally to kiss the dirt

With luck, the ever-decreasing viewing figures will finally put it out of its (and our) misery – probably not, though, seeing as budget TV will be loved by executives for years to come.

I’d advise you not to watch it, but if you’re going to, I doubt you’re reading this sentence anyway.