Pop Buzz UK

The witch is dead, long live Big Brother! Alexandra De-Gale has been booted out of the Big Brother house ahead of her inevitable eviction on Friday after she is said to have threatened some of the house mates.

This is the first Big Brother post I have done since launch night so I have yet to have my say on the woman that will always be remembered for thinking “Memba, I tol’ you” was a suitable way to prove her point, and end an argument. And arguments are what Alex spent most of her short time in the house engaging in.

She was booted out last night at around 8pm after having a conversation earlier in the day with various house mates. She had recently found out that she was up for eviction along with Mario the fake Italian, and clearly took it badly.

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Sharon Osbourne sensationally quit her role as a judge on The X Factor last week, and it was almost immediately announced that Girls Aloud singer and celebrity WAG Cheryl Cole was to replace her. Unfortunately it seems that the rest of Girls Aloud are jealous of her new role on prime-time Saturday night television.

This story has two brilliant elements to it: the loss of who was surely the best judge on The X Factor, and the fact that the hiring of Cole as her replacement could bring about a premature end to Girls Aloud.

For starters we have lost Osbourne, who despite my misgivings about last year as she and her fellow judges dominated the headlines instead of the contestants that are meant to be the stars, remained my favourite judge. Now that she has gone we are left with Simon Cowell who has become a pantomime caricature of his former self, Louis Walsh who tried to be controversial but is just a camp Irishman at the end of the day, and the useless lump that is Dannii Minogue. Great, I can’t wait for the new series.

Cheryl Cole isn’t actually a bad choice, although it now means we have two young judges who know next to nothing about music and managing a singers or singers in her and Minogue. At least Osbourne had experience on her side, though I suppose the fact that Girls Aloud actually formed as a result of Popstars: The Rivals should stand her in good stead.

However, according to Heat Magazine, and reported here via Digital Spy, the rest of the girls in the group aren’t too happy with Cole’s new role, and are jealous that she seems to be getting all of the success outside of the confines of the group.

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Blackadder was one of my favourite television shows growing up in the 1980s. Featuring Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder, and Tony Robinson as his sidekick Baldrick, the show also had the cream of British comedy talent providing back-up, including Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, now a huge success playing House in America.

Now, it could be about to make a comeback, with Tony Robinson revealing the possibility of the show returning to our screens in 2010. Before that happens though, the cast are meeting up later this year to celebrate he 25th anniversary of Blackadder II - I assume they just forgot to celebrate the first series last year…

According to Digital Spy, Baldrick told Teletext:

“We always had a fantasy of doing it again in 2010, so we’ll be having that conversation. I would love to do it and suspect Rowan Atkinson would too.”

However, it seems Atkinson may not be as keen as Robinson had hoped because it has now emerged that he is refusing to attend the reunion, which was to form the basis for Blackadder Exclusive: The Whole Rotten Saga and Blackadder’s Most Cunning Moments, two shows set to be aired on UKTV Gold.

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Here is the second batch of seven housemates to enter the Big Brother house on this, the ninth series, and my initial impressions of them all.

Alexandra

My least favourite house mate on first impressions. She thinks she is it. Was proud of getting pregnant at 15, and seems to think getting a job is something she should be applauded for. The new Charley?

Rex

yet another vain show-off, but I actually think a lot of it was just show to get in the house. If he settles down and let’s his natural personality shine through, he could be okay. But on first showing, it’s a big if.

Mohamed

A black guy with an afro, which is always good. He’s a Muslim who isn’t practising except when he’s at home, which means he isn’t a Muslim surely? Seems to be quite settled, able to have fun, without being annoying.

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Big Brother 9 launched tonight with an hour and a half long première that introduced us to the usual bunch of weirdos that always seem to be chosen. I’ll be covering the series a lot here on Pop Buzz UK, but we start with my initial thoughts on this year’s sixteen housemates. Here are the first 9 in the house…

Lisa and Mario

They both seem to be very fake, and indeed her breasts are. They grew on me once in the house for an hour, as they came across as terribly shallow and obsessed with their looks in their audition footage.

Luke

A bit of a freak, but I actually quite like him. He might start to grate on the nerves a bit after a few weeks, but it’ll be good to watch as he annoys his house mates so much they want to leave.

Stephanie

A horrible girl who seems to think she’s the hottest, most intelligent person ever to have walked the planet. She’s not. She’s an average looking blonde bint who walked the wrong way when she got out of the van.

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Britain’s Got Talent finally came to an end last night with 14 year old dancer George Sampson winning £100,000 and the chance to perform in front of Prince Charles at the Royal Variety Performance.

The final was a huge success, both in terms of showcasing the talent we do have in this country and in the size of the television audience who watched the series come to an end. However, the big question I am left with is how on earth did George win?

I know he’s a young kid who hasn’t had the best of starts in life, and I know he is talented to a certain degree, but did he really deserve to beat the much more naturally gifted Faryl Smith and Andrew Johnston?

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When television shows end, it can be hard on the viewers, especially if the show ends in an unsatisfactory way, with plot holes left unfilled, and strands left open. And it’s not me saying this, but the British public who responded to a poll by Tiscali TV.

1,586 people were questioned in the poll over their favourite programmes, how they felt when it came to an end, and how they felt toward the characters.

According to Digital Spy, 22% of British viewers suffer what is called TV Trauma when a programme comes to an end. Amongst the younger generation of 16 to 24-year-olds, the proportion rises considerably to 32%.

If that wasn’t bad enough, 29% of respondents claimed to have fallen in love with a TV character, including 50% of the younger generation. The most popular choices were Doctor Who’s Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and Cold Feet’s Adam Williams (James Nesbitt).

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We already knew that Doctor Who is going to take a break after this series finishes, with just four specials over the course of 2009 before a full fifth series airs during 2010. But now it has been announced that Russell T. Davies is leaving the show, with acclaimed writer Steven Moffat (pictured) taking over his role as lead writer and executive producer.

Davies was the man charged with, and credited with managing to, bringing the cult show back in a new updated format for the 21st century. He has now decided to leave, a decision which after the mediocrity of this latest series I am actually quite pleased with.

Moffat will now take over his duties from the end of this series, and foresee the development of the next full Who series, due to hit our screens in 2010. Moffat was already an integral part of the Whoniverse having written some of the best episodes from the first four series, including the brilliant Blink, with the strangely scary weeping angels, and the two-part The Empty Child which had one of the most endearing catchphrases in “Are you my mummy?”.

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Catherine Tate is currently appearing in Doctor Who, and some would say ruining the show. Although I’m still enjoying the series, it seems to have been turned in to a combination of a bad sitcom and a bad Sci-fi show since Tate’s arrival. And what is it with all the running? I know David Tennant is fit, in more ways than one, but does he really need to run in every episode?

But Tate may soon be returning to her comedy roots, as reports suggest Mathew Horne and James Corden want her to appear in their newly commissioned sketch show for BBC Three. Horne and Corden are the two geniuses behind Gavin and Stacey, and Horne also appeared as a multitude of characters in two series of The Catherine Tate show, including the grandson of the sweary grandma.

Mathew said:

“I would love to find Catherine a role and I’m sure she would do it,”

Meanwhile, Corden has denied the rumours that Lily Allen, his new love interest/best friend (no-one is quite sure whether they’re together or just playing with the press) will be involved in the show. Having seen Allen’s own BBC Three show, which while having some good ideas, fell down due to Allen’s own crappy presenting style, I personally hope she isn’t involved.

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Last week it was reported that Davina McCall was planning to quit being presenter of Big Brother after the forthcoming ninth series had finished. She’s now come out to deny this, and claim that she’d only leave in her coffin.

The News Of The World newspaper had claimed that McCall had eventually decided the time was right to move on, and was eyeing up a serious acting career instead. However, it seems now, after Davina’s denial, that the story was concocted from the fact that McCall has recently changed agents.

Speaking at the London première of the Sex And The City movie, she told reporters:

“I’m not leaving Big Brother. They would have to kill me before I’d stop doing it.”

This will please some but others will be wishing the rumours were true, and that she was indeed going. Her interviewing technique has always split fans right down the middle.

The new series of Big Brother is set to kick off on June 5th, and a few details are being fed to us addicts to try and increase the anticipation. First of all we have the new eye logo, which changes every year, and is pictured above. It shows the same eye as always but in a splintered effect, all coloured black except one slice of red.

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The Eurovision Song Contest is a once yearly music (if you can call it that) competition between various countries who are active members of the European Broadcasting Union. Outside of Europe it’s probably unheard of, and even in Europe itself, the general view of the competition is one of a bit of amateurish fun.

However, some countries take it deadly serious, and fight to win it with all their might every year. They put up their biggest singers and musical artists, and instruct them to bring home the glory for their country. Here in the UK, it’s slightly different - we see it all as a bit of a joke. Oh, we put a competitor up every year, and many of us sit at home and watch the fun unfold on our televisions, but the general view is one of hilarity rather than a serious desire for victory.

A big part of that is Terry Wogan, who has provided the commentary for the competition for the last God only knows how many years, and rather than act all dour, spends the evening having a few glasses of wine and generally taking the piss out of all the competitors. Unfortunately this hasn’t gone down very well in some quarters, and now the boss of Eurovision, Bjorn Erichsen, has criticised the wise-cracking Irish radio and TV presenter for undermining the contest and making it look ridiculous.

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For eight years now, we’ve been watching Davina McCall presenting the UK version of Big Brother, but it seems that finally, after this next series, Big Brother 9, she’s going to call it a day and quit the hit Channel 4 show.

While the reality show is much more about the contestants, and the interplay which goes on between them while in the house, Davina has definitely added something to the show, and made it her own. When she had to have the odd day off, and another presenter stood in for her, it just wasn’t the same.

But everyone was a fan, and all the while the show has been running, Davina has had her critics, and had to endure many accusations of being lazy or just plain dull on the show. Many people on Internet forums dedicated to the show roundly criticised her interviewing skills, as she’d often let the big questions escape unasked, and the viewers screaming at the television.

So why is she quitting? Well, according to the News Of The World, she has decided that the time is ripe for a change of career, and no longer wants to be a presenter. She’s giving up in an attempt to forge a serious acting career instead.

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Last October saw the Fox television network in the US announce plans for a Spaced remake. At the time I wrote a piece urging the network to get the original creators involved, but it turns out the pilot for the remake is being made by an American team instead.

The original show was created and written by such luminaries as Simon Pegg, who has gone on to be a big-time Hollywood comic actor with Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and the upcoming Star Trek movie to his name, Nick Frost, who appears with Pegg as his fat sidekick, Edgar Wright, who directed Shaun and Hot Fuzz, and Jessica Hynes (formerly Stevenson) who went on to appear in the Royle Family.

With people as creatively genius as these involved in the original show, it seems madness not to involve them in any remake. But more than that, Fox failed to even credit them for the UK made sitcom.

Pegg and co. do not own the rights, and so Fox were able to sneak in and steal the whole concept from under their noses, but they could have at least offered some kind of involvement or bit part to the creators.

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Blake’s 7, the cult sci-fi series which ran on the BBC between 1978 and 1981 is set to be remade by Sky. A revival has been asked for by fans for years, and now that Doctor Who has proved science fiction can work on prime time, Sky are keen to bring it back.

The show was originally launched after the worldwide success of Star Wars, but proved to be a much darker storyline with cynical characters.

In the original show, Blake was a political dissident who formed a gang of rebels (Blake’s 7) to escape deportation to a remote planet. The series ended with the whole crew being massacred. However, Blake, his lieutenant Avon, and Servalan, the Supreme Commander, are all set to be revived as part of the new series.

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Last November, Richard and Judy shocked every student and OAP in the UK when they announced that they would be giving up their daily teatime Channel 4 show. They decided not to renew their contract when it came to an end in 2008, in order to pursue new ventures.

They have since announced a new show on a new look UKTV channel, which sounds like it’ll be exactly the same as their Channel 4 show, which was in turn, exactly like This Morning.

It’s not yet known which channel the new show will be on, but with UKTV already having rebranded UKTV G2 as Dave, a move which I discussed and obviously celebrated last September, it could be an old channel given a brand new face.

Judy Finnegan said:

“When we announced our decision to leave our current television series after seven years, we were very touched by the number of people - friends, family, guests, viewers and broadcasters - who told us how much they wanted to see us continuing making programmes together.”

I’m afraid I won’t be following them over to the new channel, as after 20 years of doing the same dull crap, I think I’ve had enough of the pair, and want to see someone new doing something innovative. But what will be taking over Richard and Judy’s old timeslot on Channel 4?

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