[cc100]

31 May 2006

Big Brother is not a soap opera. If only it were, the actors could be easily replaced.
Dawn Blake would go into an upstairs room to do her homework in the manner of Coronation Street’s Tracey Baldwin.

Tracey emerged some time later, better looking, sexier and blessed with a character.

Dawn was simply shown the back door. If Big Brother were soap, we could have had another, better smelling Dawn.

The Big Brother plot would hinge on an improbable deus ex machine. For Bobby Ewing emerging from the shower a year after his death, we could have a revamped and wet Shahbaz climbing from the pool.

Shahbaz, newly buffed and ready for action, strides manfully up to an aghast and strangely aroused Richard and... Well, he does whatever the part demands.

But none of this can be. These are real people – what we call reaple – they are not manufactured acts. Really, they are not.

So when one goes, a new character must arrive. And last night we met not one but two new housemates.

So we have Aisleyne. She’s an assisted blonde, a mod-el and promoter from London. Her favourite TV show is Footballers’ Wives, that fly-on-the-wall docu-soap of how the other halves live.

And we have Sam. Sam looks like a girl but is really a boy. Sam hails from North Ayreshire and is just 18 years old. He’s an unemployed nail technician.

It has to be hoped that they will not break the rules or break down in the manner of Dawn and Shahbaz, respectively.

But if they do, and the show descends into farce as more and more housemates leave early (George has already said he wants to go), then Big Brother is in trouble.

And because Big Brother is not a soap opera, the scriptwriters can’t chuck the entire cast over the balcony (Dallas), crash a plane on top of them (Emmerdale) or send them all to their rooms…

http://www.anorak.co.uk//news.cfm?id=169742