  Finally, it's looking like reality TV is coming to an end, with an Orkney god-botherer winning Big Brother and the Fat Lady singing probably ending any chance Pop Idol has of being successful again. However, since this kind of TV is cheap and cheerful, people will keep trying, no matter that the barrel bottom is pretty much scraped through ("I'm a Celebrity... III" will apparently have Peter "Mysterious Girl" Andre and are prepared to pay twice their usual fee to get Jordan to do it). Since Channel 4 would be fucked without reality TV, they are throwing the works at the new show, Shattered, which started on Sunday.
It's one of those ideas that sounds like it came directly from a brainstorming session - "What was the main problem with BB4? " "Erm... they did fuck all and slept all the time. " "I see. Would it be possible to make sure that they never sleep at any point next time? " "Brilliant! " So, Shattered is a "social experiment", inevitably hosted, as most "social experiments" are, by Dermot O'Leary, to see how a set of people of the street react to a week of sleep depravation. The prize fund is £100,000, which reduces everytime someone falls asleep for 10 seconds. We will see the paranoia, hallucinations and emotinal breakdowns of ordinary folks as they went through the week awake. However, watching the update last night, the whole premise fell apart. Dermot was talking to the shows psychologist and sleep expert. He asked if the contestants were in any danger. The sleep experts reply: "Not at all. We are closely monitoring them and sending them off to sleep for a couple of hours if needed.
" Oh yes. So the incredible endurance feat these people are attempting has gone from "Not sleeping for a week" to "Not sleeping for a whole week, except the times when they are told to sleep". That's shit! How the fuck did this idea get commissioned? Seriously, at no point someone went "Erm, boss, if we are sending them to sleep for their own safety, isn't that undermining the program?
" It's not like I need any more excuses to hate Channel 4 at the moment (Cutting of fight scenes in the first series of Alias; Pornography: The Musical having no porn and shite songs; the addition of the family with the "sexy" Mongloid twins in Hollyoaks; BO FUCKING SELECTA; June Sarpong) but shite like this is just threatening to send me over the edge and forcibly remove the "4" button on my remote with a penknife. 
