I am surprised to learn that Big Brother 2008 started three weeks ago.
While it’s true I’m without a television this summer, I’m still surprised that I’ve managed to avoid all of Channel Four’s efforts to promote its flagship reality series.
Two of the BB housemates had been evicted before I even knew the show had started. I truly am an outsider to your human conventions.
Ironically, it was my beloved ‘Wikipedia Random Article’ facility that alerted me to this news rather than any kind of evil marketing on behalf of Channel Four or Endemol. Well done me. But come on, Endemol, pull your finger out. You’ll never reduce us to a shuffling nation of gawping Deadites if you don’t try harder.
According to Wikipedia, the new BB house includes “a jail for housemates who break the rules”, that said jail “is decorated with wallpaper of eerie doll-heads” and “is exposed to the elements but has bars so that housemates cannot escape.”
If, like me, you enjoy crying yourself to sleep at night, you will find this an interesting step towards the pending apocalypse. I think we can all be impressed at BB‘s contribution to a post-Guantanamo world.
In light of this sudden fit of envelope pushing, I’ve decided to pitch to Channel Four some new ideas for their reality show portfolio:
Eat your own bowels. Members of the public volunteer to have their lower colons extracted by an in-house Channel Four surgeon and then cooked and served by a celebrity chef. The reward for a future with an artificial bowel bag? Fifteen minutes of fame and a delicious side salad. Presented by Ainsley Harriot and Fern Britton.
Human on the wall documentary. In a subversion of the popular Reality Show format, a human man affixes himself to a wall in order to covertly observe the actions of some flies.
You’re the sniper! Randomly selected civil servants are given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to murder a Londoner from the top of the sky wheel. But which of their citizens will they plump for? Only they can decide because they’re told that you’re the sniper! Presented by Cilla Black.
School of Schlock. Underachieving school kids spend six weeks making gore movies with Clive Barker.
Hymen Academy. Seven virgins are offered to Phosphurdot Antichrist Simon Cowell for sacrificial purposes. Each of them will have to entertain him first with sexual proposals after being told that only the filthiest will be spared. But the joke is on them. They are all destined for 30 minutes of hilarious televised rape.
The all-new realtime hidden camera hilarious landmine whoopsie show. Six landmines are placed in random supermarkets around the country. Watch in realtime as limbs are torn from the mums of the nation. All proceeds go to the Princess Di Memorial Fund.
The News. Live coverage of real events from around the world. If you’re lucky you’ll see a tsunami.
Celebrity Outhouse. Watch in amazement as Trinny and Suzannah (AKA: Kim and Aggie) break into the homes of B-List celebrities and broadcast live pictures of their toilets. How clean is your weatherman’s toilet? Do gameshow hosts leave floaters? At last we will know.
Boob Job Live! Two men are put under general anaesthetic and are given breasts, the size of which are determined by a public phone-in. Presented by Jeremy Clarkson and Jordan.
Achtung straighto. Ten self-confessed homophobes are dressed in skintight pink t-shirts and forced to grow Freddy Mercury mustaches. They are then locked in a cell with ten gay men dressed in Gestapo uniforms. Much like early Big Brother this horrortainment will be thinly disguised as a “social experiment”. Let’s see what happens.
Whoops, we broke your mind. Derren Brown convinces a member of the public that he has taken a trip into a near-Earth orbit and now has to burn up on re-entry.
Ant and Dec at Sea. An hilarious ‘odd couple’ reality series in which an ant is locked in a submarine with only the month of December for company.
Davina McCall has already expressed an interest in optioning Eat your own bowels so things are going well.
If you have any further Reality TV suggestions, dear readers, I will be happy to pass them on to the Channel Four executives.