Sunday, January 3, 2010

UK Celebrity Big Brother


I have written before about how much I love the UK version of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother. Maybe it's the island or the weather or the inbreeding or the tabloids, but the UK has the lock on bat-shit crazy celebrities. To stand out in a colorful stormy land you must be more of a force of nature than anyone else just to be noticed.

Where the US version of this show is safe and tame, the British BB is awash in tension, passion, stupidity and humanity - everything real life is only compressed and trapped within a sealed house where cameras watch people 24 hours a day. You watch it waiting for the time when one of the contestants 'wigs out' over the stupidest things. You can count on it.

They even air an analysis show where the general public and others get to give their opinions about what is happening in the house. That show can be the funniest thing. Host Devina is very funny and snarky and a bitch when she wants to be. (Oh Britannia, Britannia rules the world)

All votes for removal are totally secret. In the US version the contestants spend most of their time making deals and negotiating to stay alive in the game (how American is that?). Take that away in the British BB and you have something entirely more interesting - the real personalities come out because you can only rely on your charm and charisma to convince the public not to vote you out after their name has been put up for nomination. You can be friends with a person and still stab them in the back without repercussions since your vote to remove them is not known. You also catch hell from BB if you are caught TRYING to make allies and deals with others. Frustrating for the contestants - red meat for us.

So tonight starts the last Celebrity BB. A house full of egomaniacs all vying for the public's love. Should be better than a train wreck. I am so there!

4 comments:

ade said...

They seem to be stretching the definition of "celebrity" extremely thinly this year. A waitress who was the girlfriend of a Rolling Stone for a couple of months? Purleeese!

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Good, that will only make them more desperate to stand out and make their fame this way. I have only heard of two people Stephanie Beecham and Vinny Jones being on the show. I am hoping Vinny goes off his nut early and tells someone that he is 'the Jugernaut bitch". Damn you bit torrent. I need someone reliable to be posting those shows everyday like they did with the last regular BB.

Seleus said...

Ive never seen the UK BB and I heard it was way way better than US BB which I love to watch but has become stale, boring and needs shaking up bigtime!

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Trust me Lotus Flower, the BB you want to watch is the British one. The difference are like night and day and its a neat glipse at the uniqueness of the British culture. They use words we don't and if you can believe it, their cult of celebrity is even stonger than here in North America.