Unsurprisingly, this year’s season of Big Brother has been absolutely diabolical. We’re only a few weeks in and already we’ve seen a race row, the twist being ruined, a walk out and backlash from viewers claiming that the show has gotten too sexual.
Despite this, this series seems to be particularly dull to watch. All the twists seem far too familiar; the tired other house trick has been done to death. We remember back in 2006’s BB7 (the one with Pete, Nikki and Glyn) when the “House Next Door” was used multiple times once it was revealed after Aisylene moved across and joined with new mystery housemates after seemingly getting voted out by the public. It’s been done before and we have no idea why it’s being hailed as a revolutionary new entertainment tactic. Get it to fuck.
The contestants aren’t exactly making us feel that enthusiastic about the show either. Not only are the vast majority conventionally attractive mostly-white people with a regional accent and a wealthy background, but they’ve all had some brushes with fame already To name a few; Marco Pierre White Jr is the son of a famous chef as well as a minor Instagram celebrity, Lateysha starred in welsh reality show The Valleys and even Andy is a journalist-cum-presenter. We weren’t aware that we’d tuned in to watch the second instalment of Celebrity Big Brother in a year but we apparently have.
Back before Channel 5 bought the rights to the dying reality show, it reigned supreme over on neighbouring Channel 4 and won itself 11 television awards. The initial premise of Big Brother was to watch how contestants would react to certain situations in a house full of strangers, part of the wonder was knowing that these were regular human beings that you could meet in your every day life or even be yourself. Housemates back then were arguably your normal everyday members of the public – as opposed to the media trained starlets with the bleached smiles we see before us today – and it was a hot mess. We get that things have to stay fresh and exciting but now that they’re throwing in all these boringly beautiful people, we feel like the show has lost it’s soul.
There have been recent rumours that this season of Big Brother is rigged due to a post on Marco Pierre’s Instagram showing him in a club with fellow contestant and love interest Laura Carter ten weeks before entering the house. The pair have been getting each other hot and bothered despite Marco having a fiancée in the “real world”, another storyline we’re more than used to seeing.
Fortunately we’ve come up with a handful of ideas to put the spark back into the once iconic programme. If none of these work, then nothing will save it.
Have A Dog As A Contestant
Think back to your innocent school days and imagine a time when a pet dog had gotten loose on the playground. Presumably the reaction would’ve been excitable running and shouting whilst overwhelmed children were sprinting over to stroke or attempt to play with the majestic escapee. This is how we’d imagine the BB house would react if an actual dog randomly came out of the diary room one day.
The dog would make good impartial friend to all in the house but would especially help any housemates that were going through a tough time as it’s been scientifically proven that pets lower stress levels and significantly impact the lives of those with mental health issues.
To make it fair on the human contestants, maybe the friendly woof should be a reward for completing a task instead of a genuine game player. Nobody could compete with a cute little canine and it wouldn’t be fair to give so much money to an animal with no concept of finance. Perhaps we could strap a GoPro to its collar and live stream its experience online.
Convince Everyone That The Big Brother House Is Situated On A Huge Grave For Dead Murderers
Using virtual reality technology, spooky sound design and projections; we reckon we could easily convince the Big Brother housemates that the building they’re inhabiting is haunted to fuck and everyone inside was soon set to be bummed to death by the ghosts and ghouls. It would start off with little things like the power going out and objects being moved (which would probably start an entertaining argument between the owner of said belonging and a blamed innocent bystander) and resulting in one contestant going missing under mysterious circumstances. Obviously the disappearing person would be in on it as it would be one of their secret tasks but they would be the only one in on it for the entire season. Then, just to spice things up, it would be great if several of the housemates actually did die under ‘suspicious circumstances’. The circumstances being the general public voting in which one to asphyxiate in their sleep. (Disclaimer: we’re joking. Of course.)
Perhaps Most Haunted’s infamous psychic host Derek Acorah could make a one time appearance as he riles up the house via Skype whilst claiming that there’s some seriously bad energy amongst them. We’re expecting tears, screaming and shitty pants with this one.
Keep The Contestant’s Mother’s In A Secret House Next Door
With a TV running where they can watch what their devious offspring are up to. At some point the two houses will merge and the younger generation will either be a) really happy to see their adoring mother or b) recoiling in horror after realising that they’re stuck in a house with their own mum after she’s seen you do the dirty with a horrendous egnaged man-child of fucked yourself with a wine bottle on the garden lawn. Get ready for the embarrassing childhood stories and whole bunch of Sick Chirpse Confessions.
Keep Clones In A Secret House Next Door
Just slightly worse than having all the mothers next door. To be honest half the contestants all already look like clones but imagine how the media, the public and the housemates would react if the secret other house was actually full of clones of everyone in the show (or at the very least due to budget restraints, impeccably good lookalikes). It would be chaos. We’re imagining full blown identity crises in a house already full of paranoia.
Actually, someone should make a science fiction version of Charlie Brooker’s Big Brother zombie spoof Dead Set where the cast have to face their doppelgänger and fight it out. Having to compete with actual DNA doubles of themselves would be too evil even for Big Brother and would definitely get people fired and hopefully end in a Battle Royale within the house which would of course lead to several, hopefully many, deaths.
But perhaps we should ditch the “house next door” theme and maybe just…
Put Some Reality Back Into Reality TV?
Surely this year’s contestants aren’t really representative of what the UK is actually like? We haven’t really devolved into bantersaurus yuppie lads with their short back and sides hair cuts have we? Not all women have nice tans and a face full of makeup, surely? Not that there’s anything wrong with being either of these stereotypes but it all just feels… a bit icky. We can picture all of these housemates hanging out in the same shitty West London bar which isn’t the vibe you really want when watching a show that’s supposedly about different people all trying to live together in one house is it?
We want to see normal people from all walks of life hanging out in a luxuriously decorated pad. Not a bunch of prolific and attractive social media stars with similar aspirations and opinions who have been paid to get it on with each other. Porn sites exist for that. We miss people saying things they shouldn’t because they haven’t been on TV before and the awkward moment when the token weirdo gets voted out by the public first. But most importantly we miss the lost sense of reality.
Whilst we’re on the topic of Big Brother fantasies, check out our dream Celebrity BB lineup.
