BBUK: Christmas Specials

[Brekkie Boy]

A round up of this year's Christmas specials:

Big Brother: The Celebrity Years aired on Christmas Day.

It was a look back at three series of Celebrity Big Brother, presented by BBLB's Dermot O'Leary with contributions from those that appeared in it and random talking heads.

Unfortunately though, due to the contracts of CBB1&2, Jack Dee - winner of CBB1, and Les Dennis - RU of CBB2, refused to allow any footage of them being shown. It meant we didn't get quite the complete story, though incidents involving them were referred to by the talking heads.

CBB1 dominated the first part of the show, with those appearing reminding us it was the first celebrity reality show - and only the second major reality show after the first series of Big Brother. They also pointed out they all did it for free, with no expenses and no prize! The action focused on Vanessa, who went mad and started writing words all over the kitchen table and told Big Brother to "**** off".

CBB2 was mentioned much more briefly, with the main focus being the (forgotten) feud between Goldie and Melinda Messenger. They said the highlight of the series was Les Dennis breaking down as his marriage was on the rocks, but as Les refussed for footage to be shown, we had to be content with snaps of newspaper headlines. Ex-Take That star Mark Owen won, with his winning put down to him being down to earth and knowing that he was once really famous, and now isn't!

The last half of the programme was all about CBB3 - and mainly John McCririck and Jackie Stallone. John had one aim - to get evicted ASAP. He was rude, sexist, disgusting and stroppy - and his plan was going perfectly until EVIL Big Brother unveiled it's biggest twist yet - bringing in Bridgette Neilson's former mother-in-law Jackie Stallone.

Bridgette wasn't happy, but reluctantly continued with the latest task - that now meant she had to warm the toilet seat for her ex-mother in law. Germaine Greer and the others didn't stick with it for long and made Bridgette stop doing her duties. Germaine quit in protest the next day.

However, Jackie and Bridgette did manage to sort out their differences over the next few days - but Jackie's presence wasn't good news for John. Even he could see how awful she was, expecting others to do things for him and treating people as her servants. So when Jackie and John went head to head for eviction, the most hated man in Britain had no chance in going and Jackie left the house after just five days.

The twist to CBB3 was the celebs were playing for real. Yes, they earned money for charity, and yes, they were paid for their appearance - but there was an extra twist -