[Jake.]

A well intended message can only get you so far..

11th Place: Celebrity Big Brother 21 (2018)

I actually feel pretty bad for ranking this series so low on the list. After years of manipulation from production, screaming matches between housemates (see CBB16) and some pretty awful cases of blatant sexism, Celebrity Big Brother 21 promised to be different. This was, the year of the women.

And at first, they genuinely delivered. The cast was varied. The topics being discussed were interesting. There wasn’t a “who said this about who” task to be seen. CBB21 felt clean.

India was arguably the biggest talking point of the series and, low and behold, as soon as she was evicted the series came to a pretty fast halt. The discussions about transgender issues were interesting (if not a little uncomfortable) and India had brought a nice slice of drama to the table (just enough to not be draining). So when she was evicted, it was a case of “ok, so what exactly is it I’m watching now?”.

We were left with Ann being a bit of a close minded dick (a shock), Ashley and Genuwine giving us the standard boring showmance, the odd discussion about women’s rights etc.. Shane J/Courtney and Andrew’s relationship was nice to watch and the wonderful Amanda and Wayne provided us with quick dashes of humour between the dull parts. But that’s about it, really.

My other issue with this series is the lack of ability from the producers to keep with the empowering theme. “Year of the women” soon turned into “men vs women”, with absolute awfulness like “can women change a tyre quicker??!”. Really? That’s the best you could come up with?

I liked CBB21 and I liked what the intention was. But I think that this series proved that to make a great series you have to have the right balance between interesting housemates/discussions and a good amount of drama (the latter of which CBB21 was lacking in).

Nominated: CBB9 | CBB10 | CBB12 | CBB13 | CBB14 | CBB15 | CBB16 | CBB17 | CBB19 | CBB22

Evicted: CBB20 | CBB18 | CBB8 | CBB11 | CBB21