Monday, January 26, 2009

And In The End...

CBB6 Day Twenty Two


Well we didn't see that coming, did we? The bookmakers certainly didn't either. Even when there was only Terry and Ulrika left, Paddy Power was quoting odds on for Terry.
Before we wonder about how it all imploded, we must look back on that last day. Ermmm, nothing happened. The last task or two weren't even screened (they must have been great, eh?).


There was an awful, awful, period where Verne and Ulrika were left alone at the kitchen table, and it was like a scene from the dinner party from Hades, like a demonic version of a Mike Leigh drama. Verne failed to engage in any sort of conversation with Ulrika, and initially, she sort of squirmed and fiddled with her hair in a kind of desperate subconscious plea for the ground to open up and swallow her whole ("provided I get my fee", would have been her last words).
Verne acted as if he had found himself next to that person on a tube train who sits next to you when there are twenty other seats free, and asks you if you have found Jesus.


Coolio made a brief appearance in the middle of this disaster of social etiquette and graces and informed us that the fastest way to get over a woman, is to get another one. He said this in the manner of a fellow who has just learned that the gearbox on his VW Passat has fallen off somewhere on the M40 and is planning to replace it with a Nissan Micra.
But then, he wandered off and Ulrika and Verne were alone again. Time stood still.


I've no idea how Ulrika came to win the thing, and I'm not sure she knows herself. It is possibly that the others lost it rather than she won it. Terry Christian's comment about 'the kind of people who vote' may well have been his kamikaze farewell to the winner's podium. Verne really should not have got into that strange and unnerving business with the doll, and Coolio - well he just kept being Coolio.
As the last few contenders left, Ulrika couldn't help herself. We had that quirky "be strong" comment again, this time as Ben left, and there she was holding the door for him. Verne got waved away by Ulrika with a "Hasta La Vista".
I was worried that she may confuse herself when it was time for her to climb those unforgiving stairs, and she may enter a sort of time and space vacuum, where Ulrika was constantly saying "be strong" to herself, whilst holding the door for herself to walk through.


I haven't watched Big Brother's Big Mouth since The Man Of Whom We Dare Not Speak left the show a couple of seasons ago. But unable to find the strength to clamber off the sofa, I watched the 'episode' that immediately followed the crowning of Ulrika.
It was....indescribably dreadful. Except I will try to describe it.
The rather well educated Jack Whitehall (who had previously seemed 'ok' when he was popping up in trailers for his show) seemed to go thoroughly berserk, and lose any sense of how to present a cup of tea, never mind a live show.
He overtalked. He didn't listen to the answer of questions he posed. He used the 'f'' word about three times in each sentence, and the mere use of the word elicited huge gales of laughter and cheers from the baying crowd in the tiny studio.
It felt like there had been no rehearsal and no prepared gags or 'funny' lines. It was all ad-hoc and anarchic, which may seem a cracking idea when proposed at a treatment brainstorming session in the creative department, but actually falls flatter than the Guinness Book Of World Records flattest pancake award winner when the presenter can't cope with the speed and the need for a sparky, right off the centre of the bat response to a remark or situation.
To follow in the wake of Russell Brand was always going to be a tough assignment, but this didn't get anywhere close, and it left the ending of the twenty plus days, in the hands of that eternally irritating bloke from Heat magazine, and a few humourless hacks spread around the howling crowd. It meant we ended on a confused low, but, you know, it doesn't matter.
As soon as they leave the house, the celebrities aren't even half as interesting any more. This turns out to be the greatest truism each year.
The minute they walk down those steps, accompanied by shrieking and booing, they become one of us again, and that diminishes them back to the foibles and cares of the 'outside world'. There is no gold at the end of the BB rainbow.
Except for Ulrika's fee, of course...




remotevision@gmail.com

# posted by Terence : 7:14 PM




<< Home