Big Brother’s Adults Only show not only deserves to come back, it should never have been axed in the first place.
This is a show that gives us a unique insight into the personalities of housemates. To see stuff we’d never see in the daily show - a heavily censored prime time half hour that has always been primarily aimed at children.
Adults Only is where we get to see their nasty side, to see whose rough edges are being most polished by the PG rating of the daily shows, who really has a foul mouth or who is the most crass.
And we do all talk about this stuff.
Leaving aside the nudity and titillating parts of the show, which are of interest at best fleetingly, it allowed us to get a rounded view of personalities that, after all, we vote on every week.
Added to that, the show is very intimate, one of very few Big Brother shows not recorded in front of a studio audience.
As a viewer you're literally sitting in the studio with the host, when the kids are safely in bed, chewing the fat about some of the more interesting parts of this show.
I hope it doesn’t sound too esoteric but at its best Big Brother itself is a fascinating portal into the human condition and to human behaviour.
That's why it's the king of the Reality TV genre – a show which airs for a whopping 300 hours each season, feeds the most popular website in the country and provides endless fodder for breakfast radio, trash mags and newspaper gossip sections.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s just kids tuning in – a lot of psychologists and professionals of all ages are addicted to the show as well.
For many people the housemates become friends, to others the show represents a crucial way of keeping in touch with young people.
Clearly Adults Only should never have been axed.
After all it was only sacrificed by producers under pressure from the Howard Government which was anxious to suck up to conservative senators like professional wowsers Steve Fielding and Barnaby Joyce - who just happened to hold the balance of power in the Senate.
I suspect neither man has ever even watched the show.
At it’s best Adults Only was utterly compelling viewing, by far the most fascinating of all the Big Brother shows and often far better than the overwritten American dramas which plague our TV screens.
When Gretel Killeen hosted Adults Only she handled the show's highly controversial and confronting content delicately and tastefully, at all times bringing a touch of class.
Whether professional urger and vulgarian Kyle Sandilands or the fetishistically feminine Jackie O will have the worldliness, wit or gravitas to represent this content with the same sense of taste will remain to be seen.
But whatever the packaging, the rawness and realness of Adults Only should make a comeback. A triumphant one.
