feeling listless

TV Speaking of which. What a depressing half hour of television the Big Brother UK eviction show was tonight. After the French movie sensibilities of the nine o'clock show (with the ten minute homage to the beginning of Betty Blue) watching the show implode as the housemate who seemed to have been bereft of the psychological profiling so important in previous years was dragged out. With all the swearing and sings Kitten possibly thought she was offering a Sex Pistols on Reg Grundy moment. Actually it was more like a kids party when the mother of the birthday boy turns up pissed from the pub and chins the clown.

This year, the show has nowhere else to go. The behaviour of the contestants has reduced them to little more than cyphers, their actions unsympathetic. They seem to have forgotten that actually it's a game, that they're fairly privileged to be there and should be enjoying the spirit of the thing. Yes there was a rush of excitement under the realisation that she wasn't going to leave and that the rest of the housemates would be backing her up. But this subsided as we cut back to Davina McCall as she revealed that they had a contingency plan and as events played out it became clear that as soon as the overall prize started reducing the protests disipated, the actions fairly empty. One housemate was heard to say: "I need the money..." which seems to have been the girl's trigger to leave. Net forums are already abuzz with how well she came across in the subsequent interview with Davina. Nick Bateman (the only other contestant to be disqualified) wasn't given the courtesy -- they dragged him out of the back door -- and at least he was trying to play the game. Tonight it was about having half an hour of television to fill.

This could have been an extraordinary moment of the contestants testing the boundaries of the possible. If the counter had reached zero would the winner really leave with nothing? What would have motivated the housemates to stay in there for the next ten weeks? Why would the audience carry on watching? In the event that she wouldn't leave no matter what would we have had scenes of security going into the house to drag her out by the tails of her sailor suit? Instead the viewer is left a position counter to where they've been for four seasons -- actually supporting Big Brother and wanting to know just how successful it can be in making these people's lives a misery.

Assuming you can be bothered watching anymore .... Big Brother is supposed to be evil this year. But why does that also mean unwatchable?