BJK&E

I note with a heavy heart that Big Brother 9 starts tonight.  Apparently the house is the biggest ever (oooh!), Big Brother more wiley than ever.  No doubt the contestants will be more mind-numbingly stupid than ever and Davina McCall more irritating than ever. 

After last year’s Celebrity BB racism row and lower ratings for the main series some predicted the programme’s demise.  But Channel 4 are adamant that there is still great demand for the show and that ratings are not their main concern anyway.

When Big Brother started, it was (like Davina) fresh, quirky and fun.  It was, without doubt, a good concept.  But it’s become little more than a freak show, churning out transient tabloid fodder at the expense of decent programming every night of the week.  No amount of cosmetic changes and hackneyed twists can disguise the fact that the format is tired.

Not all reality TV is bad.  The genre still has legs, the success of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ is testament to that.  As everyone knows, I’m a sucker for ‘The Apprentice’!  But please, please, no Big Brother 10.

I’m still loving The Apprentice and I think this might be the best series yet.  Not least because Siralan’s trusty aides Margaret and Nick are really getting the chance to shine (Margaret, I think I love you).

I was gutted to see Raef go last week, quite why Siralan keeps letting Michael off the hook I don’t know.  He has absolutely got to go tonight.

I think the last four will be Claire, Lee, Lucinda and Alex with Claire the eventual winner. 

What say you?

There’s not much I have to watch on telly these days but the Apprentice is lighting up my Wednesday evenings.  This series looks set to be a corker with Siralan at his pantomime best and the best comedy duo on TV bar none, Nick ‘n Margaret, withering for England.  It’s scandalously biased but the editing is fabulous and also manages to make London look like the best city in the world.

Standout characters so far are Raef (and his hair) and the unbelievably awful Jenny, who should have been sacked last week but wasn’t because she’ll make good TV.  From what we’ve seen so far, they’re all pretty useless, but my money’s on someone from the school of hard knocks winning this year after Sir Alan picked posh last time round.  Blardy marvellous.