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Dom Robinson reviews
VCI
- Cert:
- Cat.no: VCD 0285
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Year: 2003
- Pressing: 2003
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 21 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Audition tapes and interviews, Multi-camera angles (Leprechaun Orgy Night &Piggygate), Anouska in Big Brother Australia
Producer:
- Pippa Healy
Narrator:
- Marcus Bentley
One of the criticisms that faced Big Brother 4was that it was boring in comparison to the previous three series.
Yes, it wasn’t the best and once Jon had been evicted there wasn’t anyone Ithought was deserving of the £70,000 prize, especially not the chump whodid win, Cameron. It all seemed too staged when he set off to SouthAfrica for a few days (oh, why did he have to come back?), and once he returnedthe cameras focused on him way too much and twisted the truth. Example: Thenight before Jon was evicted, Cameron was seen on the “Live” footage statinghow he’d like to urinate in his shower gel, deficate in his shoes and hold himby his throat and punch his eyes into the back of his head. What did the C4summary show of that? Nothing! Just made him look the fun-loving type byshowing him being “cr-a-a-a-a-zy” on the Friday, and less of a mad religiouswanker.
At this point, for anyone who isn’t full conversant with those who took part,have a read of my Big Brother 4 Updatespage, which was updated during the series with news of who was evicted andwhen Lisa arrived. There’s also a complete list of who featured in the show andwhen they were evicted.
Talking of the “Live” footage, even on the fourth series they still can’t geta clue about how to mask the sound properly when people swear before thewatershed, talk frankly about sex or mention people outside the house. Itwas shown on last year’s Big Brother Little Brother how someone watchingthe live footage will note the start/stop times to mute such material forwhich the second person will action accordingly. Why is it then that duringthe day we’ll hear the sound of trains passing (apparently) or see footage ofthe chicken run (clearly the only reason why it’s there) for more than 50% ofthe time? The excuses don’t wash Channel 4. It’s clear some of these are heldback from broadcast so they can be included on the eventual DVD. Then again,why should they even pretend to be accountable? They made that point clearwhen they cancelled Right To Reply.
Now on to the presenters. I can’t stand Davina McCall. She is clearly themost irritating and talent-free person on TV and does she really need toSHOUT ALL THE TIME!!!? Contrast that with Little Brother‘s Dermot,someone who pre-BB I didn’t rate at all, but he’s clearly found his niche withthis and knows his audience well, despite too many repetitive catchphrases.So, most of the time, I’m “lovin’ his work”.
BB4 also saw an increase in the revenue-hogging as Channel 4 stuck their reddot over not just this programme, but practically everything else they couldget away with – then again, they’ve done that since last November whenCelebrity Big Brother 2 began. They must really hate their audience.On the other hand, in a reversal of the ’80s red triangle, I like to think thatthe red dot is there to point out all the programmes that *aren’t*worth watching.
All the interactive games played via Sky Digital wanted to charge you for theprivelidge, so I took no notice in them apart from the free sample about chickenfeed which was terrible and didn’t entice me to play even if the next levelswere free.
The cost of text voting was increased from 10p to 25p (“plus your usual textmessage rate”, so another 10p then) and they even brought in extra textingnonsense in the form of the card game Pelmanism, over late-night livestreaming and pointless polls, such as when Gaetano came over from SouthAfrica and we were asked to state our position as to what we thought of him:“Hello Gae” or “Walk on by”. Would the last Channel 4 executiveleft to lose their dignity please turn out the lights.
Hence, it’s the constant forcing down our throat to “press red” (see moreabout this atthis page),the terrible blanking of sound, the endless prostituting to text in aboutnothing at all, and one more thing – Davina, Davina, Davina, that’s killingthis series, not the people they pick to go in the house.
As for this DVD, it skims through the 9 weeks the house, but does it have thelongevity? I’m a big fan of this show and watch every C4 summary show, someof the live footage and every edition of BBLB, without voting once – although I broke with tradition whenit came time to vote Jon back into the house and I placed one vote for him andone for Lisa (just to annoy the housemates), but even after that he failedto deliver after the final votes – but once the whole thing’s over and you’veoverdosed on the subsequent Big Brother Diaries, how often will you watchAnouska’s saggy boobs, Justine’s unwarranted nastiness towards Jon,Sissy’s ginger whinging, Federico stepping out of the pedalo to retrievechewing gum, Jon for being the people’s champion, Tania’s “Piggygate”,Gos’ failure to do anything of interest, Lisa’s two fingers, Nush being”just naked all day” (well, not quite), Steph’s cleaning, Scott’s vacantness,Ray’s aggressive behaviour and Cameron’s murderous intentions towards Jon?
The DVD is presented in 4:3 fullscreen, as it has always been filmed, andthe picture isn’t as good as it could be all of the time, the backgroundpixellating when it’s dominated by a single colour. The stereo sound is fine,but purely functional, not that you’d expect anything else for this series.
The extras are as follows:
- Multi-angle sequences (5½ mins):Two here. One of the “Leprechaun Orgy night” (but without much of the orgy),and one of Gaetano calling Tania a pig, which was later dubbed “Piggygate”.One angle is what you saw on TV, with various camera cuts, while the otheris a static camera in the corner of the room looking down on the housemates.
- Anouska in Big Brother Australia (3½ mins):A brief compilation of our show’s first evictee going down under, but shedidn’t get it on fully with anyone there, despite the hot tub action. I’drather have seen summary episodes of this than Cameron’s few days in SouthAfrica.
- Audition tapes and interviews (62 mins):Does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s fun to see the audition tapes, andthe interviews are snippets that were used sporadically throughout the series,but it’s annoying you can’t fast-forward through them. This only applies tothis part of the DVD.
There are 21 chapters throughout the highlights which is reasonable, themain menu contains the programme’s theme and a small amount of animation,but the disc contains no subtitles.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.