Review: BBC Three

After a heavy bout of supervisions and essays, I wanted something that would dull the aching pain of brain-overload.  I looked to BBC3, urgently seeking pop-tastic, sex-in-your-face, garish-colours-of-blinding-effect programmes that would immediately reduce me to a dribbling comatosed patient. You lucky lucky people.  You have no idea how long, and at the expense of my law degree, I’ve spent watching countless of brain-numbing BBC3 programmes.  So here are a few which deserve viewing, requiring as little brainpower as it took to put into the title of this review.  

I had never seen Snog, Marry, Avoid before, and there’s a big part of me wishing I had never laid eyes on it.  I think I got the gist of it.  Take a couple of girls and ask the public, based purely on their appearances, whether they would like to snog, marry, or er avoid them.  Tonight was a make-under special.  First on was Becky, 21, from Magaluf.  She seemed lovely, but the virtual ‘Pod’ didn’t seem to think so, which referred to her as a ‘crispy-coated blonde hair bombsite’.  Ok, so Becky did have a lot of hair extensions and it was clear that she liked the sun, but to have Ralph from The Apprentice to say that he would ‘avoid her like a plague’ was just adding salt to injury.  I’m glad she didn’t keep to her make-under, instantly going back to her peroxide blondeness.  Good for her. 
   

Next to be paraded on camera was Paul Gasgoigne’s step-daughter, Bianca, who not only seemed fun to hang around with, but was also good-looking, and there was no reason for her to change.  The Pod didn’t see it that way, as well as the public, where 75% would rather take her out for a kebab rather than a proper meal.  Harsh.  I hated the Pod, especially what it said to Andre…then I realised that this was all a set-up, and that I shouldn’t care about deep-rooted issues regarding appearances, and that I should shut-up and watch the show and let my brain melt.    

Brainpower required: *
Crass: ****

After getting through the excruciating Snog, Marry, Avoid in one piece, let’s move onto ‘Hotter than my Daughter.’  Why is God so cruel?  Why does the BBC make shows like this?  So many questions…but I’m not allowed to think about this.  To fulfil the objective of my quest, I need to sit back and relax in order to successfully procrastinate and forget about my worries and my doubts in relation to my law degree.  Yes, so, ‘Hotter than my Daughter’.  Step one: take a mother and daughter.  Step two: ask five members of the public to judge which one is in more urgent need of a makeover.  Step three: makeover the selected mother/daughter.  Easy. 

This episode is set in Cambridge – huzzah!  Meet Lesley, 41, who describes herself as MILF.  Meet her daughter, Keely, who hates how her mother dresses in lingerie and ribbons in public.  Keely is embarrassed.  But her mother thinks Keely should ‘glam up’ a bit because she dresses too frumpy.  Who should have the makeover?  CONUNDRUM.  Find five people in a local co-operative to assess this little conundrum we have here.  Lesley is selected, and transformed from trashy MILF to sophisticated MILF.  All in a day’s work.  So simplistic, so beautiful. 

Brainpower required: *
Crass: *****     

Want to find out who were the most annoying people of 2009?  Why not watch Most Annoying People?  Part one, mind you, I can’t seem to find the second half to fulfil my curiosity of who were in the top five, but hey, that’s what imaginations are for.   Richard Bacon narrates (yeah that junkie from Blue Peter), picking out Kanye West for his hilarious Taylor Swift moment, Ashton Kutcher twittering about Demi, then there’s Subo and Kerry Katona.  Brain-deadening.  Swirling colours, repetitious imagery, soundbites, fast camera shots…so this is what it’s like to be high, I thought to myself, as I got a tissue to wipe the dribble from the side of my mouth.

Brainpower required: *
Crass: ***

To be honest, I was dreading Nicola Roberts: the truth about tanning.  I had horrible visions of the BBC gathering as many people who had overdone it with the tanning and parading them in front of the camera for our amusement.  But, thankfully, I’m glad that addiction to tanning was treated seriously.  Even though a bit pop-tastic at times, it did highlight the dangers of sunbeds, revealing the extreme lengths people would go to achieve perfection.  Well done Nicola. 

Brainpower required: ****
Crass: *

‘Why Vampires Bite’, hosted by the annoyingly pretty historian Lisa Hilton, who we get to see dress up rather seductively at the end of the programme, complete with flashes of fish-net thighs.  Apart from that fit commentator called…I don’t know, his name doesn’t matter, this programme is aimed to vaguely amuse and vaguely interest those who feel like giving up on everything.  Perfect for numbing the brain. 
   

Contents-wise, think crass Heat magazine.  It’s a lovely, easily digestible programme taking you through the history of the vampire, from old Slavic folklore, to the dead guy with the stiffy, then ending up in sex-fearing Victorian England, then onto film and TV, right up to Twilight, with young girls screaming ‘bite me Robert Pattinson, bite me’.  To make sure the programme lasted for a whole hour, it was spliced with footage of 1970s B movies and several images of venus flytraps, which I’m not sure how it fits with the theme of vampires, unless you want to compare a venus flytrap to a vampire snatching its virginal prey but I don’t want to analyse what I’m seeing on screen.  I just want it to wash over me.  Plus points: good soundtrack including The XX and Muse, footage of Brad Pitt from ‘Interview with the Vampire’ and how Christopher Lee looks like my supervisor. 

Brainpower required: **
Crass: **       

Can’t think of what else…to write…struggling to write…words…brain…dead…BB3 has done…the trick…reducing me…to…zombie…mission accomplished…too much crass for brain to handle…*slumps*