When ITV resurrected Celebrity Big Brother in 2024, after this ailing format had languished in TV purgatory for greater than half a decade, it appeared to vow a vibrant new period for a present that has at all times suffered from a little bit of a picture downside. Sure, it lacked the sequins and sob tales of Strictly. And it couldn’t lay declare to the excessive stakes and hardships of I’m a Celeb. However there can be devious twists! An honest finances! And, as a consequence, correct celebrities! It’d have the camp issue of the earlier seasons that aired on Channels 4 and 5, however with ITV’s monetary heft behind it, to blow away the faint musty odor of desperation that had at all times clung to CBB.
What they gave us, although, was fairly underwhelming. Final yr’s season amounted to numerous hours of X Issue ugly twosome Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne being snide, Ekin-Su from Love Island refusing to speak about Love Island, and Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary getting voted off on the first attainable alternative, after making probably the most cursory jibes at Meghan Markle. It didn’t precisely really feel like important viewing. In reality, it says rather a lot that probably the most thrilling half was watching social media clips posted by Walsh’s one-time X Issue protégés Jedward, during which they – joined, for some motive, by TOWIE’s Gemma Collins, a splendidly memeable CBB contestant herself, again within the Channel 5 days – watched and criticised their former mentor.
Certainly it received’t take a lot for this new season to surpass these not-so dizzy heights, then? You’d assume so, however the 2025 launch doesn’t precisely lay the foundations for greatness. The Large Brother set has been given a daring paint job, lined in summary blobs and drips, however it may possibly’t disguise the truth that the new contestants really feel decidedly beige. When Chesney “The One and Solely” Hawkes meets chat present host Tricia Goddard, they begin up a dialog about attending the identical main faculty. Chris Hughes, previously of Love Island, spends most of his introductory chat with hosts AJ Odudu and Will Greatest speaking about how a lot he wants the john. Former Tory MP Michael Fabricant’s luxuriant hair is extra of a brassy yellow than a beige, however his excessive model begins to put on skinny virtually instantly (and what’s it with ITV and placing Tories on actuality TV reveals?).
As ever, there are duties to finish, designed to make the doer look as silly as attainable upon assembly their new housemates. These miniature challenges, we study, are a part of Large Brother’s “hush hush very secret recreation present”, a jarringly twee phrase that turns into increasingly more irritating every time it’s uttered. It’s not precisely an imaginative conceit, and one which appears to have been dreamed up purely in order that Odudu and Greatest can periodically shout “factors imply prizes!”, as if momentarily possessed by the spirit of Bruce Forsyth. As ever, Odudu and Greatest are a likeable duo, however even the pressure of their mixed enthusiasm can’t make this uninteresting idea remotely attention-grabbing.
Final to enter the home is actor Mickey Rourke, whose CBB arrival has been probably the most heralded (partly as a result of he’s, effectively, an Oscar nominee, and due to this fact correctly well-known; partly as a result of he’s reportedly incomes £500,000 for his time on the present). However there’s one thing greater than a bit miserable about the entire charade: the way in which he appears to do not know what the present entails, the leery method he greeted Odudu. The producers in all probability employed Rourke as a unfastened cannon, however, judging from the ultimate 10 minutes of launch evening, watching him will in all probability be extra uncomfortable than entertaining.
Because the 13 celebrities try a half-hearted conga across the kitchen, making an attempt to win factors to switch into prizes, the entire endeavour feels notably bleak. Certainly virtually everybody concerned is cursing the truth that they didn’t get booked for Celeb Traitors as an alternative. We’re solely two seasons into ITV’s CBB reboot, but it surely already seems like time to place it out of its distress.
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