Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been, um, some time since my last confession.
Yes?
It’s like this. I know it’s all over, but I just feel so guilty, being a TV critic and all, I’m supposed to have some kind of taste. But I started watching Big Brother, despite saying I wasn’t going to. You know, just for research purposes. And then got, well, sucked in. Well, not really sucked in, but more like investigating-journalistic-sort-of because I really do think the people running it have got some sort of political agenda.
What kind of agenda?
I think it’s something to do with softening people up to become docile participants in a totalitarian society. I swear that’s why I kept watching. Only (sob) I started to look forward to it. I kept cheering on Vesna when she rebelled against the pointless, degrading tasks they were ordered to do, and took her chain off and ...
That’s pretty bad, my child, but you still haven’t cracked it for a mortal sin. You’re still well in venial territory.
Well, Father, it gets a bit worse, I’m afraid. I started to care what happened. I ... I even voted. You see, Dean was a bullying swine, Tim was a manipulative SNAG, Heath and Glenn were sleazes and several of the girls were skanky ho’s ...
And how do you know that, my child?
Well, on Big Brother Uncut, they ...
You watched Big Brother Uncut?
Er, well, not every time ...
Did you or did you not watch Big Brother Uncut?
Snuffle.
I can’t hear you.
yes, father.
Well, now, we are getting close to mortal sin here. I think you’ve notched up a few decades of the rosary. Whom did you vote for?
Well, I wanted Vesna to win.
Vesna? The whingeing one? The one who never bloody shuts up about oppression and indignity and drives me up the ...
Oh, you know her? Did you watch it too?
Ahem. Ah, yes, well. Harrumph. Absolvo te. Do the rosary.
How many decades?
All of them. Including those new ones that I can never remember.
That’s a bit harsh. Who did you vote for?
Not Vesna, that’s for sure.
Just so you won’t think that your trusty Watching Brief has completely taken leave of her taste, I propose to dwell upon extremely worthwhile programs from this sentence onward. Well, partly at any rate.
Top of the approval list for the nonce has to be Liz Jackson’s current tenure