Finally, Big Brother gets interesting

The series has been going since 1999, but it's not been until now that it's raised anything more interesting than gossip and prurient titillation.  Now, we've got housemates doing stuff that is socially unacceptable.  The interest is all outside the house, which is churning out the same unwatchable pap as ever, but it raises interesting issues.  And some of the responses are more interesting still, from the Indian street burning Endemol producers in effigy, to those producers hurriedly saying "crikey no, it's not race, it's class".  These, of course, are among the traditional responses of the people who perceive themselves as both the intellectual elite and the oppressed and downtrod. 

The world in microcosm?  Hardly - Big Brother is still a glorified Sea Monkey freakshow - but as a catalyst for stuff that really is quite interesting, it seems to be doing a job.  Shilpa Shetty looks set to come out of it smelling of roses, and the delightfully hideous Jade really has no idea what sort of trouble she's going to be in.  The global village is large indeed.