There is a common phrase among geeks, myself included, for when a once-popular TV show is past its best – we say it has “jumped the shark”, writes Dan Wainwright.

The phrase originates from a latter episode of Happy Days when the Fonz, wearing shorts and his leather jacket, jumped on a jet ski over a shark for some inexplicable reason that was nothing to do with teaching Richie Cunningham to be cool or shouting “Eyyyyyyy”.

It is now applied to situations where the writers or executives of a show, in a bid to boost flagging ratings, do something so completely out of character as to spoil the enjoyment of the programme for the rest of its run.

Big Brother has not jumped the shark. Sadly it did not even get the honour of doing something outlandish enough to be classed as having gone “too far”.

I was a fan for the first series. No, actually, I was obsessed. My addiction was cured because I conveniently went to university soon after Craig Phillips won and donated all his money to a disabled friend and I therefore did not have a TV, had to give up cold turkey and didn’t get sucked into the repetition.

These days it makes me feel positively sick when people say that summer’s arrived because BB is back. It’s the same feeling I used to get when teachers would say my exams were just around the corner and it’s things like this that make me dread the arrival of the warmer weather for all the trauma it will inevitably bring.

When the first series aired Scouser Craig won everyone’s support by having it out with Nasty Nick around the table over a civilised cup of tea. Nick Bateman remains one of TV’s biggest villains but all he really tried to do was write things on a slip of paper and try to convince his fellow inmates to agree with him. He wasn’t so much a big baddie as a potential politician and it’s almost a shame he didn’t go into Parliament.

If BB was to have a “jump the shark” moment then the closest it can have come is the return of Jade Goody with her family in tow to Celebrity Big Brother in 2006. The resultant outrage and the diplomatic incident that was spawned by the late Jade’s bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty should have been enough to decide to let the show go out with a bang of tabloid headlines, controversy and publicity seeking politicians looking to burn it at the stake.

Instead though the makers brought in more rules, toned down the live streaming and tried to have Big Brother come across or patriarchal and school teacherish rather than sadistically rubbing his/her/their hands together every time a housemate claimed another had “disrespected” him.

The fact that Carphone Warehouse pulled its sponsorship leaving BB to be supported by Lucozade does a lot to conjure the image that people are no longer texting each other to find out what they think but are instead only watching it if they are sick, in bed, glugging glucose drinks because there really is nothing else on.

The choice of housemates has become predictable. We will have the heart-throb and the surgically enhanced girl who hopefully will get jiggy with it. Far too easily the comically over-inflated Sophie got with the messy-chic preener Kris within a fortnight. It was so suspiciously contrived by a pair who are behaving to stereotype Big Brother even had to draw attention to a rule banning false relationships.

There’s no need for this programme now. It was incredible when it began. We would not have reality TV as we know it if not for BB. The idea of text message and phone voting on shows was only given legs by Big Brother. You could forget the idea of a virgin “hairy angel” from a Scottish village getting international stardom overnight were it not for us having taken the likes of Tourettes sufferer Pete, transsexual Nadia or god-fearing Cameron to our hearts.

Big Brother opened up the idea that the extraordinarily ordinary could become superstars.
But it has been superceded by those who have grown fat by feeding off its substantial crumbs – X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent – shows where the public think they are setting the agenda.

This series should be the last. And it should end with something monumental, a last challenge or task that pushes the boundaries of taste and controversy so far that Endemol dare not make another series. Wouldn’t it be great if that swimming pool was filled with sharks?