Brotherly lust (Big Brother 2 - Uncut (DVD))

Member Name: rdobbie

Product:	Big Brother 2 - Uncut (DVD)
Date:	21/07/03 (1297 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some nice memories to look back on, X-rated nudity

Disadvantages: No eviction footage from outside the house, Little sense of chronological order

The Big Brother Uncut 2 DVD is a compilation from the show that went out in 2001, the year that's memorable for the mass incineration of Britain's farm animal population, and planes flying into buildings. Ahhh, 2001. Was it really two years ago?

Big Brother 2. Kate, Jade, Alex, Sandy, remember?

Wrong! That was Big Brother 3. Funny how it all becomes a blur, isn't it?

BB 2, if you ever watched it, was the one that ended up being scooped by Brian, the camp Irish homosexual. And there was Helen, the blonde Welsh tart ("I love blinking, I do") and her on-screen romance with housemate Paul. Not to mention slimy Stuart who reduced a few of the girls to horrible tears.

The current run of BB 4 rekindled my interest in what I believe to be a fascinating bit of television. I maintain that you don't have to find the housemates interesting to enjoy the programme. (Which is just as well, as they're invariably a bunch of dullards). For me, the fascination comes from the production aspect of this weird social experiment. The superb design of the house and garden, the excitement of the Friday night eviction, the imaginative challenges dreamed up by the production team. The sinister twists and turns in the nomination rules. Reality television - maybe not, but it's the most exciting live broadcast since Noel Edmonds' Late Late Breakfast Show went off the air.

So I managed to get hold of BB Uncut 2 on Ebay for seven quid. And what a ruddy disappointment.

It's all there, but then somehow it isn't. Of course we get the obligatory arguments, tears and mishaps. Dean's dreary guitar playing, Helen's gibberish and Brian's constant striving to be the centre of attention.

But the biggest let-down for me was the lack of eviction footage. Surely it's the highlight of Big Brother to see the evictees walking out to varying degrees of cheers and boos from the baying mob outs
ide. And don't you just love it when Davina shows them the footage of them being nominated by the other housemates? Not to mention the rapturous reception the winner and runners-up receive on the final night. Well, there's none of that on the DVD. In fact Davina McCall isn't even on it - anywhere. The whole thing is a narrative told entirely from within the walls of the house (and, of course, the diary room). Master of ceremonies being who else but the bloke with the annoying Geordie voice.

I presume the missing elements of the show are somehow connected with copyright and contractual matters (somehow I get the feeling Davina McCall didn't want to feature on the DVD - hence her total absence from it). Which I think is a real shame because the whole thing feels incomplete. Much of the contemporary pop music associated with BB2 is also missing, no doubt for reasons of copyright clearance. "Another Chance" by Roger Sanchez was a classic song which I remember being used on the highlight clips as the soundtrack to the Paul/Helen relationship when the show first went out. But on the DVD all these songs are dubbed over with royalty free Kwik Save background music.

The sense of chronological order is entirely lost on the main compilation segment of the DVD. Although evictions are mentioned in the order that they took place, you will frequently see an evicted housemate cropping up in a clip much later on in the compilation. "Hang on! That's Penny! We're on week six but they said she was kicked out in week one?!?!" It's confusing and difficult to follow in that respect.

What strikes you most about this DVD, though, is the explicit nudity that was never shown on TV. After all, the disc is rated 18 which allows for pretty much anything. For example viewers are treated to a gratuitous shot of Amma, legs wide open on the bed, shaving her fanjita (and rasping very loud at the same time). The detail is graph
ic, and it has to be said, downright pornographic. In fact this whole disc is a genitalia-fest, with more skinless sausages and button mushrooms than a Tesco big breakfast. If you like films on that basis alone then this DVD is certainly for you.

The menu system on this DVD uses some great BB graphics, with a few remixes of the theme tune thrown in, and is fairly easy to navigate. Although the box quotes the running time at 102 minutes, plus 136 minutes of extras, this shouldn't be taken at face value. Much of the "extra" material, such as the housemate profiles, is already in the main feature - it's been blatantly duplicated.

To be fair there are a few decent extras, like the housemates' original audition tapes. It makes for mildly interesting viewing. But somehow this DVD fails to recapture the magic felt by the viewer when the epic event was actually happening. No longer are you a part of it - you are just a passive viewer watching a package put together in an editing suite. Paradoxically there is a feature on this DVD which gives a small amount of control back to the viewer: the classic bust-up between homosexuals Brian and Josh in the hot tub can be viewed from four different camera angles. Big deal - it sounds the same whichever angle you view it from. But at least you get to find out what that 'angle' button is for on your DVD remote.

This DVD is a good permanent record of a moment in time. A summer of love, if you will. It's scrappy and occasionally boring (just like real life), but for fans who watched the original programme you are able to reminisce as you chart the happenings in your own life against the antics of the housemates, albeit not in real time.

Live, unscripted television at its most raw, immortalised forever on a Digital Versatile Disc. Now where else are you going to find that?

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