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BBC CASTAWAY 2000 WHY?

RICHARD BRANSON AND BILL GATES LOTTERY

BALLISTIC MISSILES ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT?

INTO V.W.BEETLES & CAMPERS? TRY THIS!

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in association with

Big Brother TV
by Bob Fear

 

	Every nutter's home should have one

Are you that bored with your lot that you feel the need to expose yourself indiscriminately to the watching eyes of the country's media? Have you got such bad post-millennium comedown that you now want 20 million people to be able to watch you eat, sleep, shit, not shag and constantly indulge in self-analysis? Do you think that your life is worthless until you've had your fifteen minutes of prime-time TV fame, appeared on the front cover of Radio Times and had Stock, Aitken or Waterman offer you a recording contract? Well - the world of the TV 'real-life' experiment is your oyster.

If you're young, broke, sunbed tanned, fresh out of Italia Conti and desperately craving attention, then Shipwrecked are scouting for gullible new prima donnas. A free, ten-week trip to a South Pacific island is on offer - so admittedly there are definite perks. But if you're seriously verging on the psychotic and have no friends, then Channel 4's new Big Brother show is your destiny. European TV's big new thing is to debut on our screens in the spring. It will feature ten volunteers who agree to the ultimate in noodle-twisting mind torture and spend 70 days together in an isolated house under constant surveillance, whilst the viewing public vote on whether or not you should be expelled at various intervals. Yes, there is a cash prize. No, you are by no means sane if you are even slightly tempted by this offer. I'm sure anyone who does apply will not be in it for the money, but for the attention.

Orwell's 1984 was meant to be a dystopian vision of out future, we were never meant to enjoy the prospect of being watched by an omnipotent eye 24 hours a day, seven days a week. How have our values become so cheap over a couple of decades that we now can't get enough of seeing into our neighbours' living rooms? This is merely voyeurism in the extreme. Perhaps it's a natural progression from soap opera to docu-soap to The Truman Show.

Watching you, watching us, watching you

At least Castaway 2000 had the pretence of being a timely sociological experiment, without gratuitous cameras-up-noses business. Any frustrated, self-righteous nosy neighbour type will be wetting themselves at the prospect of being given free reign to anonymously spy on a bunch of unhinged mugs and then decide, essentially, whether they should 'live' or 'die'. Half the viewers will simply want to know who shags who, whilst the other, more aloof, half will watch to see how far desperate people will go for some wonga. Scary. I suddenly feel like my grandma twenty years ago when she balked at Chris Tarrant's ear-pulling, flan-flinging exploits on Tiswas. 'Honestly, TV nowadays. In my day…' And now look where Tarrant is.

This latest scheme does seem not be a case of giving the public want they want, but a case of 'give it to them anyway' and let the controversy fuel the essential ratings figures. Warning signs like the US' Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire? debacle (when the millionaire turned out to be an alleged wife-beater) are being ignored. Whilst the Shipwrecked homecoming queens complained of the lack of psychological support and survival training, the Castaway 2000 posse (who have psychologists and SAS survival experts on hand) have just expelled a member of their community in a sure-fire ratings grabber come the summer update show.

	Did any of this lot read Lord of the Flies?

One way or another these shows are mere tabloid fodder. Even if something's shite - as long as it regularly reaps in about 10 million eye candy addicts it'll be on your screens 50 weeks of the year, how do you think Birds of a Feather survived that long? It should be no big surprise that the high revenue-guaranteed lowest common denominator wins again, but how come Channel 4 are suddenly catering for the Sun reader? Oh well - I'm sure it'll find its place on The Royle Family's TV screens in the future.

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