BBC kirjoitti: Big Brother: A secret success?
Any series of Big Brother inevitably reaches the point where someone wheels out Andy Warhol and his observation that, one day, everyone would be "famous for 15 minutes".
But on Celebrity Hijack that discussion opened up into a debate on the relative merits of Robert Rauschenberg and Walter Sickert, as contestants debated modern art with Malcolm McLaren.
Of course, you may have forgotten the series was even happening.
Featuring 12 "talented youngsters", each a leader in their chosen field, it was consigned to digital channel E4 like... well, like every former Big Brother contestant in history.
The press duly rounded on the show, scathingly calling it "a cop-out" (The Independent) and "E4's very own Marie Celeste" (The Sun).
But for dedicated fans, it has been a delight.
The histrionics and the shameless self-promotion of previous years were ditched in favour of erudite discussion and slapstick comedy.
Kazoo
The opening night was a particularly shining example, as Little Britain's Matt Lucas took control of the house and made budding politician John Loughton do his bidding, issuing instructions through a secret earpiece.
The next hour was buttock-clenchingly funny, as the evidently sensible Loughton was forced to confess he had written The Sound Of Music on a kazoo and spent several minutes trying to hug beefcake boxer Anthony Ogogo.
It was playful and silly - two elements that have been sorely lacking in recent Big Brother series - and it set the tone for the rest of the run.
Radio One DJ Chris Moyles imported several tonnes of snow to the Big Brother garden, while Russell Brand toyed with the idea of staging a mock execution.
"But then I thought hold on, that's a misuse of power," he admitted. "So I became a sort of malevolent General Pinochet."
And while critics turned their backs on the show, fans felt it was one of the best yet.
"There are people in there that seem to have more than one dimension," wrote Fezza on TV website Low Culture.
"There's actual social experimentation now," said one poster on the NotBBC discussion forums. "There are no horrific cliques forming; it's actually entertaining."
'Soft target'
While viewing figures have been a low (if respectable) half a million per night, showbiz website Digital Spy says its forums are as busy as they were for last summer's series of Big Brother.
So why were the press set against it?
"Big Brother is a very soft target," admits Telegraph TV correspondent Mary Evans. "It is very easy to be rude about."
"But the critical reaction is often extremely far removed from the popular reaction and if the show's appealing to that, then all power to it."
Tim Teeman, who writes for the Times, says the show "started quite well" but he soon grew bored with the contestants.
"Big Brother is about conflict and big characters," he argues.
"The problem with having a group of gifted young individuals is that, to get to the top of their field, they have to be quite disciplined and therefore quite boring."
Phil Edgar-Jones, the show's creative director, disagrees with this assessment.
"I love this bunch of people," he says, comparing them to the singing nuns and honest handymen of the first series.
"In the earlier days it would have been cast more like this. In latter years it's been a little more performance based. So I find it quite refreshing."
Edgar-Jones, who has worked on the show since its second series, says it has been useful to be "off the radar" this time around, as it allowed producers to "play around" and re-introduce the comedy elements.
"Sometimes we've gone too far down the twisty-turny route and there are other things to be done," he admits.
Eccentric
While Edgar-Jones is looking to the future - he will start wading through audition tapes for the summer series as soon as Celebrity Hijack final is done and dusted - critics are writing Big Brother off for good.
It's not the first time, of course. The show came back bigger and stronger after the "boring" fourth series - but can it do it again?
"Today the Mirror launched its new team of 3am Girls and part of their mission statement was saying they wouldn't cover any Big Brother contestants," notes TV critic Caitlin Moran.
"That's fairly gigantic as these things go."
Moran believes that the venerable reality series needs to be given a proper break before it comes back.
"It's the same with the X Factor. Every eccentric in the country has applied to be on these shows now.
"It's like cod fishing, we need to get out of the north Atlantic for a couple of years and allow it to restock."