It was with curiosity (and not a little horror) that I noticed last night during the closing credits of Big Brother that there is a nod for a Story Editor. (And before I go on, apologies for starting off with the dreaded BB, but it will be the one and only time. If I didn’t mention it once, you’d only be waiting for it with the anticipation of the arrival of a necessary but unpopular guest at a party).
The inclusion of a story editor among the swathes of segment producers, senior producers, executive producers, prop supervisors and cinematographers does make a perverse kind of sense, reinforcing the image of Big Brother as a soap for the iPod generation.
The story editor will doubtless pounce on those personalities with the potential to provide the most value over the mammoth 13 week run. The best of Big Brother has always had these rich strands of “story” running through it, but now it seems utterly contrived and lacking spontaneity. Nobody could have predicted Jade (and who’d want to?), but last year’s shenanigans with Makosi et al felt like a well rehearsed stroll through Emmerdale Village. Editing of the events is often cruel and highly manipulative, but clearly employs the smoke and mirrors craft of a soap to get the point across in this multi-camera world.
And as a result, Big Brother as a subset of the reality boom has ceased to be its own genre – it’s a soap, as much as EastEnders and Corrie are and erm… Family Affairs was. Announcements of Ross Kemp’s hokey-cokeying in and out of Albert Square jostle for space in the tabloids alongside the exclusive life story of Shahbaz. A quick tap on the calculator shows that around 91 hours of Big Brother will be shown before the crushing deflation of the final eviction (and that’s just the nightly shows, not including Big Brother’s Little Brother or Big Brother’s Big Mouth). That would keep Holby City going for two years.
The depressing thing about all this (and this is purely a selfish thing) is that I haven’t seen one second of footage from the house this year, aside from the blessed release of the closing credits when I can safely creep back into the living room. I have willingly become a social pariah at the water cooler by a conscious decision to go Big Brother free this year – and yet, it’s impossible to avoid. Through nothing other than passive media exposure, I know that somebody called Shahbaz walked earlier this week, and that Dawn followed soon after. Is it childish of me to feel cheated by this?
Whether I’ll be successful in my attempts to go organic in my avoidance of Big Brother remains to be seen, but the only thing that would possibly tempt me back would be some cross-programme fusion. Let’s have Coronation’s Street’s Sean Tully or Norris Cole mixing with the housemates next year. They’d be just as fictional as everybody else in there.
A version of Big Brother populated by soap characters isn't bad you know. Maybe they should do one for the next Comic Releif: how would Grant Mitchell cope with Sean Tully? What would happen if alcoholic Phil Mitchell was locked up with fellow alcoholic Mel from Hollyoaks (especially as Mel has a nad perm and unbleached roots, much like Phil's wife Kathy)?
Not sure why (drink?) but feel compelled to at least argue the counterfactual... it's never been denied that there are editors at Endemol in charge of maintaining a consistent arc throughout daily updates of the show. This has been the case since the first series of BB (acknowledged in the 'behind the scenes' documentary shortly afterwards). As to whether their decision to acknowledge the work of this particular editor all of a sudden is noteworthy is something of a different question... but calling this a symptom 'of the ipod generation' is a bit unfair (I was barely able to listen to MP3s back in 2000, let alone import them onto a fag packet-sized white box...)
So far this year i have tried my best to avoid BB at all costs. Most years however i feel myself being dragged into the black hole that is BB and i while away many hours watching this drivel (it's people wathcing pushed to the limits). Over the years it is obvious that stories are being developed for the contestants to create either a good or bad atomosphere. The producers play on the fact that most of the wannabes see BB as their ticket into the world that is showbiz, they delude themselves into thinking that they will be the next big thing, they are unfortunately, not. For 13 weeks of the summer a group of nobodies are left in a house full of cameras, something must be done for the entertainment factor, these people left to their own devices couldn't entertain their own shadow and talking about Auntie Betty's sick parrot for hours on end feels like having the life sucked out of you. Whilst i don't agree with the idea of story editors, they are needed. However, i would love if for just one day the 'loons' were left to their own devices, what would happen then?