Celebrity Scissorhands (BBC 1)

This week's Student column, pre-edit. I've also (very crudely) put the pic above in as the need to illustrate my mad hair was fairly essential for the purposes of this piece.

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It's 2am and as the credits of the Celebrity Scissorhands finale roll down the screen, I'm struck with the appalling realisation that, like a dog returning to its own vomit, I've watched the entire series for three weeks. How did this happen?

Much as I love Charlie Brooker (though his work is somewhat derivative of my own), I thought he was going a bit far when he made the point that reality TV is turning us all into zombies. I quickly changed my view on witnessing the finale of this show which consisted of dead-eyed people clapping numbly in time to music while Steadman from Five Star (a kind of Tesco Value version of Michael Jackson) danced around a haircut. This process was repeated several times over with the other non-entities while my eyes rolled back into my head and drool spilled from my mouth.

Nonetheless, it would be kind of hypocritical to deride the haircuts produced, primarily because I appear to be smugly wearing a sort of Legoman's helmet of hair in my column picture. But for fuck's sake, three weeks spent doing a slighly modified graduated bob?

Celebrity Scissorhands is like a lot of TV that interests me: to the average viewer, it's pointless shite that shouldn't be broadcast; to the discerning TV critic, it raises numberless issues, each more complex than the last.

There's Lee "I'M NOT GAY" Stafford, who proved a constant source of fascination with his aggressively heterosexual similes regarding hairdressing: "Oi, mate, cutting hair's like playing Premiership football, innit" and other variations of that sort (boxing, making love to a beautiful woman, etc).

Then there was the problem of Zammo from Grange Hill who, despite having reached the twilight of his life, has remained trapped in a permanent childlike state. His face has lost none of the youthful enthusiasm or openness that made the 'Just Say No' campaign an international success. On a middle-aged visage however, this had the consequence of making him look like a friendly retard.

And of course, the same thing happened that happens every time I get too involved in a second-rate TV show. Like the time I had confusing feelings for Jeremy Kyle, or the tragic period when I started emailing the panel at Loose Women, I began to feel a powerful attraction towards Lee Stafford, a feeling rendered even more conflicted by the fact that I bought a pair of his hair-straighteners recently and they were fucking atrocious.