Big Brother - all washed up?

It should have gone out with a bang, but it was more like a whimper. While I must confess to being a "Big Brother" junkie these last eight years, I found it increasing difficult to stay hooked for this 2008 season. 53-year old grandmother, Terri, was an obvious favourite and ultimate winner tonight, and I was really looking forward to the promised "best of..." scenes of eight years worth of shows. But the old clips of former hostess, Gretel Kileen, and former winners - Ben, Peter, Regina, Trevor, the Logan twins (Greg & David), Jamie and Aleisha - not to mention the infamy of bum-dancing Sara-Marie, merely reinforced how much lustre was lost from the show this year.

Yeah, I know, how much lustre did it ever have?

The prize money was back down to $250,000, no one received cars this year, no overnight program with wacky Mike Goldman filling in airtime while housemates snored, half-hearted and biased hosting efforts by Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O (Gretel never admitted on camera to having favourites!) - and it seemed like much of the regular budget at Network TEN went into flying over fasion guru, Carson Kressley, and then "Baywatch" personality, Pamela Anderson, to oil up the Aussie beefcake (and Travis) for her bizarre calendar shoot - for use in a reality TV show of her own later in the year.

I'm sure it'll be the cliche of the week, but: "It's time to go... Big Brother."