I remember the first series being posited as a sort of psychological experiment. A test to see what isolation from the outside world and a house full of strangers would do.
They seemed to drop that pretty quickly when it became clear that a group of attention seekers hell-bent on becoming famous was the way to get more viewers. Bit of stretch perhaps but I definitely feel this is where the celebrity culture really went to the next level with hoards of bellends looking for their 15 minutes on a raft of reality TV shows that had the path paved for them by Big Brother.
Edit: that said, the Celebrity Big Brother moment where someone thought David Guest had died in the next room was incredible TV and almost made up for 15 years of toilet before it.
I have watched and enjoyed some of it in the past, but given the current issues around the Jeremy Kyle show, etc, I wonder what care the people received and how many of them went through traumatic experiences afterwards. Hard to make an argument for it these days.
First couple of series were incredible and I was properly addicted. Then once people cottoned on that it was a quick way to fame it became pretty awful. 5 for the earlier series, 1 for the rest.
Watched like the first 3 I think and it got progressively worse and worse. Saw bits and pieces of the few after that and its just shite. Cruel, exploitative shite. 1/5.
