We do love to watch a celebrity doing either something
extreme (like throwing themselves off a ski jump) or mundane (like
baking). This week the celebs (sort of,
more of that later) were out in force.
Sunday saw the return of The Jump. The great thing about this show is that there
is a real sense of danger and that the little lambs may come down to earth with
a bump. Winter sports are exciting to
watch, mainly because they take place on a slippery surface. They are potentially dangerous and are
normally only performed by athletes. So
when an untrained celeb has a bash you know it could all end horribly
wrong. This is in contrast to the forced
jeopardy in I’m a Celebrity. All the challenges there have come out of the
mind of a sadistic production team (and I’m still not convinced that even the native
Australians would eat a kangaroo penis.
I bet they just told the early settlers they did to see if they would
follow suit. I bet they can’t believe
that they actually tried it themselves).
The other attraction of The
Jump is that they mix up athletes with actors with reality stars.This can lead to some awkward face-offs such
as the one between Beth Tweddle and Louisa Lytton.Beth Tweddle is an Olympic, European and
World medal champion.Louisa Lytton is
an actress most famous for her role Eastenders.(Actually, only famous for her role in Eastenders).Beth approached the skeleton (which is like
bobsleighing without the bobsleigh) with all the determination, professionalism
and rigor of an Olympian.Louisa closed
her eyes and seemed to be controlling the sled via some sort of Jedi mind
trick.Beth loved it.Louisa hated it.But they were both incredibly, incredibly
fast.When they were waiting for the
results as to who had won between them, Beth had a “I cannot lose to her!” look
on her face.Luckily she didn’t, but it
was close.
That’s the thing about The
Jump, it can really turn things on its head. (Literally and figuratively.)Another Olympian, Rebecca Addlington, is also competing.Throughout the show we had seen the celebs
fall, flounder and generally make a farce of the show’s events while the
athletes shone.However on the final
jump Rebecca, somehow, dislocated her shoulder.You would have thought that with all that swimming she would have had the
strongest shoulders in the business; but it would appear not.As it turned out, order was restored and
Louisa left.But reality stars have won
the last two series; so perhaps it’s too soon to rule out “Arg” from The Only Way is Essex and that posh bloke
from Made in Chelsea.Actually thinking about it...we can rule out
Arg.
On Wednesday Celebs invaded the Bake Off tent for the
biannual The Great Sport Relief Bake Off.
The contestants on the Sport Relief
version are a combination of sports stars, celebs and for some reason, politicians.Like all the best formatted TV shows there is
a pattern.The rubbish sports person who
can’t bake (but may go on a journey) and the comedian (who claims they can’t
cook but always seems to do something amazing at some point) are at the back of
the tent like naughty children.The font
benches are reserved for the swotty politicians and the other celeb who you
know is going to be good.
Last week we saw that; Chris Kamera is about as good at
baking as he is at commentating; since losing his seat in the election, Ed
Balls has a lot of time on his hands and appears to spending most of that time
baking cakes for his kids; Victoria Coren is brilliantly unpredictable, going
from a Bloody Mary muffin via winning the Technical to an over-salted cake; and
Kimberly Walsh (who was on the winner’s bench;whoever is on that bench usually wins.Just saying) has transformed into a floral print wearing new face of the
WI.The stars though are Mary and Paul
who because there is no real pressure in this spin-off, actually come across as
being a bit of a laugh.
No one was laughing in The
Celebrity Apprentice - US.You have
to search hard to find this one as it’s tucked away late night on BBC1.With it being American the challenges,
characters and money raised is much bigger than in the UK version.We are actually watching the season from
2012, but let’s be honest, they are all the same really.The boy’s team consists of Penn Jillette (the
talking one from Penn and Teller); the 1970’s Hulk; Sulu for Star Trek; the lead singer from Twisted
Sister; the bloke from Coming to America
who wasn’t Eddie Murphy and some other men.The girl’s team are Debbie Gibson (yes, her.Electric Youth and all that jazz); Tia
Carrere (from Wayne’s World)
and.....errrrr.....nope.That’s it.I have no idea who any of the other women on
the girl’s team are.I’m sorry.I’m sure they are all household names in the
US but they mean nothing to me here in Blighty.Sorry.In factThe
Celebrity Apprentice – USA could really just be called The
Apprentice – USA.
One thing I do know though is that those girls can
fight.Why stab someone in the back when
you stab them in the front?One twist
which they do have in the US version which they don’t over here, is that before
they even find out if they have won or lost, the project manager is asked who
they would bring back if they do lose.Awkward.At the centre of all
this is Donald Trump who until the recent Presidential race was really just
known as that slightly creepy millionaire who named his daughter after one of
his wives (who luckily was also the daughter’s mother.Naming your daughter after an ex-wife would
just be wrong, even for Donald), that Selina Scott upset him a few years back and
he has golf course in Scotland.
If Alan Sugar is facially channelling Sid James, then Donald
Trump is channelling his personality.“She looks beautiful doesn’t she?” he would comment on one of the female
contestants.At one point he followed
one of his comments with “Can I say that?”.I think experience has shown us that you can, and do say, whatever you
want Donald.I wonder if he would be up
for appearing on the next season of The
Jump.Donald Trump on the Luge.Now that would be worth seeing. UPDATE: Since writing this the news broke of Beth Tweddle's injury. Good luck with the operation Beth.
