Big Brother UK puts Matt Lucas and Alan Cumming in charge

The UK's Channel 4 typically fills the cold months with a celebrity edition of Big Brother. But with last year's show being the focus of an international racism controversy, Channel 4 announced that they would be giving Celebrity Big Brother a rest this year. Instead they're filling the house with a cast full of young overachievers ... and then giving a variety of celebrities control over the madness.

Kicking off this season of Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack is gay comedian Matt Lucas, whom you probably know from various unforgettable roles on Little Britain. Lucas' first prank on the Big Brother house was to have Scottish youth activist John wear an earpeice and follow orders from Lucas. Here's a sample of Lucas' actions:

Lucas tried to stir things up with his puppet, pushing him to declare himself an expert in every other houseguests's area of expertise, and to follow the claim with something really foolish. John struggled with the task, especially when it came to following the houseguests' conversations and Lucas' commands in his ear at the same time, and most of the strange things John said and did were missed by his fellow houseguests. Even though he failed to stir the pot on Lucas' behalf, Lucas gave him passing mark on the secret task for good effort.

A few days later, Alan Cumming took control of the Big Brother house and assigned each houseguest a broad character to play for the rest of the day. Cumming later asked them to improvise a performance with their characters, one that told a complete story. Unfortunately, the performance was terrible and the broadcast edition mercifully edited it down to nothing, save for a few reactions from Cumming:

I wish the US edition of Big Brother would demonstrate a similar sense of playfulness. I mean, can you imagine how much fun it would be if someone like Neil Patrick Harris (who said he's a fan of Big Brother during the All-Star season) were to take over for Julie Chen on the US edition?

Looking at the list of upcoming celebrity hijackers assembled on Wikipedia, Lucas and Cumming are the only gay celebrities scheduled to take over the Big Brother house for now, although gay-faves Joan Rivers, Paula Abdul (that'll be interesting) and the women who play the McQueen sisters on Hollyoaks (was there no room for James Sutton in the BB control room?) are all slated to take the reins

Before Celebrity Hijack debuted, Channel 4 warmed up Big Brother fans with Big Brother Around the World, which mixed flashbacks to past UK seasons highlights from the various international editions. The special gives a good amount of time to a gay moment from the first season of the Philippines' Pinoy Big Brother: Celebrity Edition, whose cast included actor Rustom Padilla. Padilla had separated from his wife just before the season began and, four weeks into the program, he came out to fellow houseguest Keanna Reeves.

It's a powerful moment, inspired by the symbolism invoked by a butterfly that interrupts their conversation. Padillla talks about his image of gay men as effeminate and how he doesn't relate to that stereotype before coming out to Reeves. It's a powerful moment and one I'm surprised I hadn't heard about until now. Check it out in the segment below, you can find it at the 4:42 mark: