Baby Beauty Queens (BBC3)

I'm just so happy...

Baby Beauty Queens is a furtid glance into the frantic tedium that is the life of a child pageant contestant. Although not the first such peek into the lunatic world of glittered contempt and teeth-grinding desperation, BBC3 clearly found previous ventures far too critical or inquisitive so this time, travelling light on both irony and reason, we once more immerse ourselves in the freakish world of the Mini Miss Competition. Sane human beings will spend all 30 minutes of this guiltless paedothon with their faces locked into a rigid mask of horror like a Daily Mail reader who's just found an asylum seeker taking a shit on their lawn.

We watch from the edge of our seats as 'child princesses' Amber and Eden are primed for the upcoming competition. There's a common theme here that quickly becomes apparent and that's one of utter delusional insanity. The girls are treated as both fragile icons of vicarious accomplishment and bejewelled tapdancing slaves and the typical scene shows either mum or daughter kicking up a shit-fit somewhere in Topshop.

These are slotted in between snippets of interview with the mothers where we are treated to a direct shot of loopy banter. Amber's mother exclaims "Last year I thought she was a princess, this year she's going to be queen princess" clearly displaying a distinct lack of awareness of monarchical heirarchy. She is also keen to point out that she 'would never force her daughter to participate in beauty pageants' with all the conviction of a nazi war criminal, having buried her daughter neck deep in chiffon and ignorance at the negation of everything else including any lasting sense of dignity.

We also glimpse similar scenes of fellow foetal competitor Eden, who's mother Fathom sounds like she was named after some sort of aquatic super-villain. Fathom runs a one-stop-shop for glittering horror capes and ruby red slut rags called 'Brazen Hussy' and it is from this trove of gaudy baubles that Fathom outfits her first-born, draping her in a mint green aberration whilst barely concealing her pride. Meanwhile, for those watching, lunch has begun to resurface with alarming urgency.

The mothers' pride is seemingly impervious to reality. As their children warble painfully along to Britney Spears or lollop about the living room like startled wildebeest, the mums look on agape as if the girls had started vomiting diamonds.

Competition day rolls around and the girls are paraded about in some godforsaken village hall. The competitors are shoved on-stage to perform a variety of devastating performances. Quite predictably both Amber and Eden win utterly nothing and are left to the mercy of their bulldog-faced progenitors.

An adjustment

It transpires that despite my gargantuan knowledge of games, I truly come into my own when reviewing something I truly loathe. For that reason, from this point forward I shall be reviewing snippets of complete dross from the world of games and tv. If I have even the most positive feeling toward something it is unlikely to make it here.

It also struck me recently that I can never find anything worth watching when skimming through the 'on-demand' content available, instead having to wade through page after page of codshit heaved out by BBC3 or, heaven forfend, the shambling horror that is the ITV Net Player. So, I've decided to make the mountain of utter bollocks work in my favour. At least once a week I'll be casting a critical eye over some of the finest television ever shat out by our nation's broadcasters.

I'll leave the previous, rather pleasant reviews where they are if only to prove that I wasn't always a negative, curmudgeonly bastard. Just don't tell anyone.