Calrissian.com : Big Brother Articles : The Grand Injustice

The Grand Injustice

The Angels Cried, some of the crowd booed furiously, the Day'29 people refused to take part, but still the Dark Lord triumphed. C4's 'Chosen One' won the fourth series of Big Brother, but Camerons victory has come at an almighty cost to the corporation. Final Week voting collapsed a massive 50% on last year (4.3 vs 8.6 million), although viewing totals remained broadly the same. As a result of this great Injustice many devoted fans of BB1, 2, and 3 may have probably deserted the series for good. C4's production quality and their selection of housemates this year have contributed to permanently tainting what was once a highly respectable entertainment show.

Darkness rolls across Hertfordshire as Cameron wins BB4

Friday July 25'th was an evening most Big Brother fans would prefer to forget. After such a fascinating and exciting third series, the fourth season turned out to be a truly dire outcome. The final night was something that most fans were resigned to, with the result seemingly unavoidable. Yet when it did happen the 'grand finale' was probably more sickening than many viewers had dared feared. Things proceeded as most people had been expecting. The house 'sweeper' Steph got booted first, with Ray 'Fucking wankers' Shah just managing to beat Scott 'dynamic as wallpaper' Turner. Cameron Stout's unjustified victory was no surprise to most viewers, but when it was finally announced by Davina, it still sent a shiver of despair through a few million people.

Low Voting - Testament to C4's failure

Since Tickle and Federico got the boot I have been relentlessly requesting that people refrain from voting. After the events of Day 29, C4/Endemol did not deserve a single penny of profit from BB viewers. When the final totals were released I was pretty much pleased with the resulting collapse in vote totals. The BB4 final failed dreadfully to motivate many viewers to vote for one of the 4 remaining possible winners. None of the 4 contestants inspired many people to support them, least of all Steph - who has tried to appear so un-sexual.

Final Week Vote Totals

Cameron : 1,928,570    44.4%
Ray        : 1,428,231     32.9%
Scott      :    786,978     18.1%
Steph     :    196,026       4.5%

When the voting totals were revealed I was not entirely surprised. The order in which the housemates left the house was as I had expected. What was surprising however was that Cameron failed to get even 2 million votes. 2 Million is simply a poor result, and hopefully Mr Stout will realise this sometime in the months to come. Knowing Cameron though, he'll never come to understand just what happened on Day 29.

In the end Ray was much closer than I had expected, if only the Tickle Army had known Cameron was pulling in so few votes - then the Ticklelites might have voted for Ray to win. Although having Rude Boy Ray win, would have been only moderately less disgusting that Stout winning. Scott also scored a pretty meagre 786k. The most laughable result though was for Steph 'I'd never violate myself' Coldicutt. She managed a truly lame 196,000 votes during the 7 days of voting. I wonder what Steph thinks of her pathetic 4.5%, does she now realise just how awfully dull the viewers have found her ?

Final Week Total votes- by Year.

2000 : 7.1 million
2001 : 7.3
2002 : 8.6
2003 : 4.3

What C4/Endemol will make of the above figures I can't begin to guess. The production team have made so many stupid errors of judgement, it may well be the case that they will still pat themselves on the back for their work on BB4. Perhaps though they did get the message from the true fans of Big Brother, that BB4 sucked badly. What would YOU do if you were in command of C4 right now ? Would you really be happy with the result, with the collapse in voting figures, and the overall style of the show ?

Cameron and Ray - what a lousy couple
for the public to select from

The Final Week in the House

As expected the 'Nush' got the boot, leaving just 5 housemates to fester. Tickle did very little in the way of making things more interesting. The only noticable event was Jon's diary room rant about Cameron being a 'wet rag'.

Steph Upsets Raymondo

Just prior to Nush's booting came the only real confrontation in the house, and even then it lasted only a matter of moments. Ray brought up the issue of Steph's talk which they had one Sunday night after the second round of Bingo. A fair bit of drink had been consumed (naturally so), and ms. Steph sparked off the unstable Ray. Within a short while Steph was hugging Ray, and all was settled once more. That was about as argumentative as the BB4 house ever got during the 64 days.

Steph - the Ice Queen

By week 2 it had become clear to me that something was not quite 'normal' with Ms. Steph. A few key aspects of her personality soon became apparent. First, we had Steph's nightwear - which looked liked something you'd expect an elderly person to be wearing. Steph herself had said she was sometimes mistaken for a lesbian - Hmm, most of us thought.

Lets take a look a look at a few of Stephs interesting revelations in regards to the subject of self-pleasure.

'It's never right, its not a good thing'

"It's not about your body... It's about perversion! Are men really interested in women who violate themselves? ...
It's wrong. It's not something I need in my life,".

'It isn't' about your body... its about perversion'

'Perhaps its different for men, but when women say these things... its never right'

Jon ask Why ?, Steph replies '...cause their genitalia are on the outside... I'm quite satisfied with going to sleep every night...in me jim jams'.

So lets get this quite clear... Ms. Steph regards masturbation as 'violating one's body', and in her view '...its never right... not a good thing'. Hmm, now does that sound like a free spirited and well rounded woman of the 21'st century ? Or does Steph sound instead like an utterly repressed and sad woman who has probably never had an orgasm in her life.

You know it would not surprise me if sometime later this year Steph will sell her story to the tabloids, on how she has had a tough life, and how she has never felt such pleasurable highs. We know very little about the 'real' Steph, even after 64 days in the house. She said very little about her life, remaining almost as secretive and locked tight as her buddy Cameron did. Steph never really talked about her past, nor her failed marriage, her current divorce, or what she really wants to do with the rest of her life. I watched a pretty large chunk of the live coverage, and she seemed reluctant to discuss her work past - including her work within Prisons.

Steph will soon fade from our memories, she is a non-character, there is nothing of consequence to remember her by. Her endless floor sweepings, her dreary talks about her dog, and her anti-sex comments...sum her up pretty well I think. Farewell ms. repressed.

Tickle Fails to live up to his Intentions

When Jon Tickle climbed up the staircase for the second time, his legion of Fans (including myself) were going nuts. After a few weeks of Tickleless Big Brother, here we were and our Tickle was Back ! Just before Jon went inside he seemed to have an all out plan of ripping cameron to pieces. For a few hours there was real hope for the last 2 weeks of the show.

'However' (as BB would say) by Day 3 of Jon's second stay it became clear that he was not going to live up to his intentions. Jon soon settled into a relatively quiet routine of doing very little. Considering all that he knew about the housemates, it was very dissapointing how very little he did.

Jon's initial delight that he managed to get Cameron to talk about the 'single currency' issue seemed to totally nullify Jon's original intentions. Jon soon renounced his plans to annoy and provoke Cameron, indeed Jon was almost coming to like Cameron at times.

There were just a few occasions when Jon tried to get Cameron to discuss a few issues - although Cameron would remain mute as ever, and such attempts by Jon were never forcefully done. That is one drawback about Tickle, he has a great many grand ideas, but he tends to never follow through with them.

I am reminded about one of Jon's final diary room moments, when he replies to BB's query on who might win the contest. Jon launches into a pretty fierce attack on Cameron, yet when it came down to it Jon never confronted Cameron at all. Jon never walked up to Cameron or any of the others and said 'I don't like you Cameron, you are a fake, and I hope you dont' win'. Instead Jon just kept silent - which i can understand, but you only get one opportunity to be in BB (unless you ARE tickle), and Jon never really had a serious confrontation with any of the housemates.

I will remain a supporter of Jon Tickle, however Jon never did as much as his loyal fan base deserved.

The Day 29 Initiative

The day that Jon and Federico got booted - Day 29, was BB's darkest moment. We all knew what was happening that evening, C4/Endemol wanted Jon out of their show no matter what the cost. The double eviction would lead a split vote between Fed and Jon fans, and Cameron would 'probably' survive.

Perhaps it is time for a new group to be formed, the 'Day 29 Initiative'. A group whose purpose is to help keep the memories alive of how C4/Endemol treated Jon Tickle, and indeed how a number of other contestants were unfairly portrayed. The highlight show's editing has been far worse than merely biased, it has been outright disgusting. They have spliced and diced video together in such a way, that has on many occasions totally misrepresented the true nature of a situation. The most infamous example being when Jon told Ray to stop abusing the girls - Ray having stalked the girls in the unlit bedroom. That particular C4 edit omitted Cameron's evil comments about Jon. It was aired at around 8.40 on the Friday evening, and may well have swayed 15-35,000 votes for Cameron onto Jon instead -resulting in Cameron surviving the week 4 eviction vote.

I believe that in around 8-9 months time, many people will have forgotten how C4/Endemol treated Jon. C4 can never be forgiven for their vendetta against Tickle. Tickle should have won BB4, he was the most intelligent housemate out of all four series, and he was treated like dirt by the production team.

BB's Future

BB3 was a resounding success. No matter which side of the Alex/Jade/ or Kate & Jonny camp you were on, BB3 was without doubt a highly entertaining and successful series. The fourth series of BB has put into question whether BB:UK has any future at all.

There will of course be a BB5 (and a sixth), but unless much more dynamic people are chosen, and improved standards of production, then Big Brother's days are numbered in the UK. This would be a tragic shame since the basic format makes for great entertainment. A point of note, between August and November the BB5 production team will be formulating their next show. They will surely be targeting a new type of winner, a new type of contestant, new games, and other production issues. But what about the BB5 winner, what stereotype will win next years contest ? A black lesbian mother ? An Islamic male ? An Asian beauty ?
What we can be sure of is that next year the producers will be seeking a female winner - there is no doubt in my mind of this. If you are a male contestant next year, you can forget any chance of winning. The BB5 winner will be a girl -and she won't be white either.

So if you are an elegant tall female, not white (preferably of Indian origins), reasonably (but not too much) intelligent, then you would do well to already start considering what style of application you will be submitting.

Back Next Year

In closing what can we say about BB4 ? Was it really as bad as many have claimed ? I believe so, and in fact strongly believe that BB4 is probably the best example in TV history in how not to produce/manage a successful franchise.

As a whole the BB:UK franchise has done extraordinarily well, so perhaps we should forgive this recent failure. The thing is this, if BB5 sucks as badly as BB4, then one of the UK's most interesting reality TV shows will probably come to an end in 2005..

BB5 can only be better, right ?

I shall probably be back next year, the clock is already ticking down my dear BB fans....... T-9 months and counting ;)

yours
philip calrissian