I like to watch

Yeah! Call me a voyeur, but I'm once again hooked on the Australian "Big Brother" (so-called) reality TV series. I like to think I watch it every year because of the social experiment thing, but it's probably because there's nothing more compelling that hearing gossip you're not supposed to hear - kinda like when I try to read my book on the train and everyone else is on their mobile phones. Try as I might, I can't get much reading done those days.

Whatever happened to the promise, for this year's TV series, that the participants would be from "all walks of life..."? I expected there to me a few older people this year, after the last two years' overdose of pretty young things whose idea of stimulating conversation is to quote endless chunks of dialogue from big budget movies of the 90s.

But again, almost everyone in this year's batch seems to be blond (or streaked), aged under 30, and (supposedly) "only in it for the experience, not the money". Network Ten was touting the "all walks of life..." aspect way back since last November. My mum (visiting from Perth) and my aunt, both in their 70s, almost got to audition for this year's series. See my blog entry from last November.

I was really hoping the premiere episode would show footage of the audition-hopeful crowds at Fox Studios, 'cos my Mum and aunt were bound to have been caught on video as they chatted to the big security guys charged with corraling all the potential pretty young things into their auditions.

As for the "social experiment thing", I'm waiting for the media to start doing a beat-up on how manipulative and cruel BB is, what with the Andrew/Hayley/Billy threesome, Friday Night Games, and the poor white-clad, gruel-eating foursome, slowing going wacko with the lights on, 24/7, in The White Room. And the media will make the most of it, 'cos there's no "Adults Only" version of the show scheduled this year.