People ain't no good: Big Brother 2008

You have to hand it to Big Brother for doing what very few British shows can do nowadays. It gets people massively obsessed. It goes beyond being water-cooler TV (a terrible term, but there's no UK equivalent, as whoever coined it clearly underestimated our demand for cold water) like the Apprentice. In it's ninth (NINTH!?! This means I was ten when it started. How terrible.) year, there's still people watching the nightly shows, the seven million spin-offs (coming soon- Big Brother's Big Crotch: what the housemate's genitals say about them), and the live feed. For thousands, hearing birdsong on a summer's day doesn't mean you're having a lovely day out, it means that some twat just said 'fuck' at 3pm, and E4 don't want their, frankly, insane viewers to be offended.

The most obvious sign of what a 'cultural phenomenon' BB is can be seen on Digital Spy. For those of you unfamiliar with the entertainment news site/FamousMales offshoot, for 3 months a year they go whacko for Big Brother. Every news story, no matter how trivial, is reported and given more space than, say, the death of Antony Minghella. Let's put that in perspective, in terms of how much coverage a story receives, the death of an award winning filmmaker, behind some of the most loved pictures of the last few decades, is deemed as important as Barry and Jen having a row about whether they want mushroom or tomato soup. And to top it off, there's the constant live news feed, with such highlights as '01:27: Dale is trying to make porridge with water and enlists Alexandra to help him. She says it's "rank"' or '23:17: Lisa and Mario are lying on the sofa talking about the birthday surprise earlier. Darnell is talking to Dennis about chicken and cooking.' There's so much coverage, so much pointless, useless, ultimately meaningless information to take in. It's become less a TV show and more of a grueling endurance test designed to find out how much irrelevant trivia one person can absorb before their brains start to dribble out of their nostrils.

To be fair to Endemol, this year's housemates at least seem like they're an interesting bunch. Among the least punchable are toy demonstrator Mohamed, whose key reason for wanting to enter the house was to show that not everyone called Mohamed is a suicide bomber. I'm sure that in week 6 when you get so hammered off White Strike that you end up plunging your face into Rebecca's bosom, you'll still be considered a great spokesperson for Muslims everywhere. And there's massage therapist Kathreya, whose dreams don't extend far beyond her next box of cookies, but doesn't seem to have a cynical bone in her body, which is nice when all the other contestants are talking about previous series and how they're planning to 'play the game'.

The ones who you'd gladly push through a blender than spend five minutes in their company include walking Gaydar profile Dennis, a cross between Perez Hilton and an accident in a Cuprinol factory, who seems to scream and bitch, but not much in between. He's the kind of person you almost wish was molested as a child, just so he'd have some kind of justification for his strange, vile behaviour. There's also Rebecca, who, upon entering the house saw her fight against millions of years of human evolution and revert to a series of excitable yelps and odd high pitched noises that made little sense, if any.

The rest are a mixed bunch- not outstandingly likeable, but not obviously smackable either. They're humans, basically. And whether, for the ninth year in a row, people being people is enough to keep viewers watching is still to be seen. Whether it's worth using up three months of nightly airtime on sixteen people in a house rather than airing US shows like The Wire, or home-grown productions like Boy A is up to Channel 4. But figures talk, and everyone's got bills to pay, right?

Lost in the plot

If you've never seen this before, try it now. Stare at the four dots in the middle of the picture for about 30 seconds, then tilt your head back with your eyes closed.
See, like everything in life you're ever instructed to do, this seems like an enormous chore now. The 30 seconds of staring are now equal to some Herculean feat of endurance. Think about what you could be doing. You could have gone for a really, really quick wank. Started your epic novel. Watched at least four Youtube clips of people pissing on children's birthday cakes. By the time you can finally find out what it's really all about, you'll have probably tried to plug yourself into the mains through sheer desperation. That's some indication as to how most Lost viewers, myself included, felt halfway through the third series.

The problem with any US drama, especially one that's as serialised as Lost is, is that they just keep bloody going. Shows like House, Criminal Minds and the several hundred CSI series'* are gold for the networks because they're formulaic, so don't need brand new sets every episode, and each episode stands well on it's own, so can be repeated over and over until humans become so used to sitting and watching crime procedurals all day long that when people try to go out and buy milk, their brains are unable to handle there not being a murder, so shut down through pure disbelief. (*CSI: Aldershot is currently in the early stages of production for ITV. David Westhead will play the no nonsense boss with a dark past and 50 miles of rural farmland he isn't really sure what to do with)

Even The X Files and Buffy, other shows with reams of mythology and back-story, can be generally be dipped into due to their 'monster of the week' formula. 'FBI agents solve spooky mysteries', 'teenage girl fights demons'. Pick an episode from season three or four of Lost at random, and you'd have a hard time getting a newcomer to understand what's going on just by describing it as a show 'about people stuck on an island'. You'd have an easier time starting someone three-quarters of the way through Crime and Punishment and telling them it's about 'this guy being a bit of a bastard'. There's so much back-story to get through in Lost, because that's essentially what the first three seasons were. To the point that a lot of the casual viewers were tired of staring at the four tiny dots, so went to watch Criminal Minds instead. But in the third season finale, Lindelof and Cuse did what nobody expected- they closed our eyes and shoved our head back, and suddenly the big picture started to become clear.

Season four of Lost has been as daft as ever, but rarely less that magnificent. The pace has gone from meandering to racing- a filler plot two years ago would have been Hurley building a golf course. Now, it's Jack having his appendix removed, whilst Jim Robinson's army comes to murder anyone whose name isn't after the opening titles. The flashbacks, which often felt like filler for the first three years, suddenly became an essential part of the show- hinting at what was going to happen, raising more questions, and occasionally, finally bloody answering some. We learnt that time travel is possible as long as you're a rabbit or have an increasingly puzzling Irish accent. And that Jack's dad is dead, but still has a living physical form. Possibly. Well, he can pick up babies, which a large amount of dead folks can't. Which is why they make rotten childminders.

A special mention has to go to Michael Emerson, who has been the highlight of the show this year. I wasn't too sure about Ben at first, he felt too much like a sleazy secondary villain who we'd be stuck with until the real baddie came along. Emerson's turned him into a fantastically complex anti-hero, who'll sweetly share a chocolate bar with Hurley, then condemn half the cast to being blown to buggery so he could avenge his daughter. One of the main questions that this season's brought up is whether Ben is a villain after all. After seeing what Jim Robinson can do, he could well be the lesser of two evils.

Mainly, season four will be remembered as the season that Lost changed it's game. It's no longer setting up and drip feeding answers that lead to more questions, there's genuine resolution going on. An ending was set up- 6 of them get off the island- and the rest of the season dealt with how, what happened and what the consequences were. Now that season five's aim has been made clear- they all need to go back to the island (and not in the same way the Vengaboys did), all that we have to do is wait. Six months. Oh shit. Of all the answers that Lost gave us in season four, the best thing is that they were never the easy ones. Which means that in two years time, when it's all over, the last episode won't end with a 'ZOMG THEY'RE REALLY ALL DEAD' moment. It'd be a crass, insulting way to finsh a series which respects the intelligence, loyalty and, let's face it, endurance of the viewer. It would make about as much sense as having some old soap actor be your big bad. Oh...

For the record, I don't think that Alan Dale is just some old soap actor. He's also one of the few people who can say 'John Barrowman shot in my face' and not have it be a terrible, scarring experience.