Here’s a depressing thing that almost definitely happened: after Gogglebox became such an unlikely ratings success story for Channel 4, dozens of sockless television ninnies packed into dozens of drab television production offices and prodded their soft little fingers at dozens of moodboards labelled “THE NEXT GOGGLEBOX” in the desperate hope that they could adequately bastardise the format to their own end.
“How about Gogglebox X Factor, where the judges are people on webcams at home?” one of them almost definitely asked at one point. “Or how about Gogglebox Antiques Roadshow, where normal members of the public on webcams assign arbitrary values to rare pieces of historical memorabilia?”
And then one of them asked: “What about Gogglebox Gadget Show?” and someone else replied: “I like it, but how can we make it clear that we’re ripping off Gogglebox as aggressively as possible?” and someone else replied: “Why don’t we just put the word ‘Box’ in the title a load of times?” And then, after they almost definitely went for a celebratory round of obnoxious negronis, that’s how we ended up with ITV’s new series Big Box Little Box, which begins tonight.
In Big Box Little Box, five normal families receive a package of gadgets each week – tonight, a selfie toaster and a futuristic unicycle – and we watch as they attempt to get to grips with them. Now, the more optimistic among you might see Big Box, Little Box as an opportunity to watch products being reviewed in an unselfconscious manner that’s leagues apart from the toadying sycophancy of the professional review trade.
However, if you’ve ever seen Gogglebox, it’s much more likely that we’ll really just end up watching a collection of frustrated extroverts slowly adopting ideas above their station in the mistaken belief that they’re becoming national superstars just because they get to scowl blankly at an instruction manual on ITV for half an hour a week.
But make no mistake, this is a big moment for the Gogglebox-isation of television. If Big Box Little Box fails, it could be the end the genre as we know it. If it falls flat, it could do for Gogglebox what spin-offs like Come Date With Me did for Come Dine With Me; weakening it so permanently that it can never scale its previous heights again.
And this would be a terrible shame, because it’d mean all those moodboards would go to waste. If Big Box, Little Box doesn’t replicate Gogglebox’s success, we’ll never get to see the Gogglebox version of Britain’s Got Talent (a dog on a webcam popping a balloon with its teeth), or the Gogglebox version of Question Time (someone on a webcam asking someone else on another webcam a series of questions in the form of spittle-flecked rhetorical tirades) or the Gogglebox version of Springwatch (a family on a webcam watch a lamb on a webcam).
This must not be allowed to happen. This country is full of awful people who wrongly assume that they’ll be any good on TV and, without a swathe of Gogglebox knock-offs like Big Box, Little Box, they’ll have nowhere to go. For this reason, we should all be in Big Box, Little Box’s corner tonight.
Big Box Little Box, 8.30pm, ITV1.
