The time has come to turn off the cameras, give the Geordie with the exaggerated accent his P45 and pack up the circus for good.
Channel 4 unleashed Big Brother on its UK audience at the start of the new millennium and opened the door to a new brand of television.
It gave Average Joes the 15 minutes of stardom they so desperately craved and catapulted society's more extorvert characters to overnight stardom, whilst crestfallen celebrities were laid bare the very second they set foot into the secluded complex.
Being a reality TV star became a career aspiration for the nation's youngsters, whilst drunken fumbles, racial furore and regular visits from the Metropolitan Police helped the Orwellian-themed show evolve more into an epicentre of vulgarity with every series that passed.
But if history has taught us anything, it is that Big Brother's shock and entertainment factor has never been the same since Kinga Karolczak decided to clutch a bottle of Merlot as she went for a nightly stroll in the Big Brother garden.
The nation will be hoping that it can finally breathe a huge sigh of relief after the plug was pulled on this televised freak show last night but hints by Endemol that the final show on C4 might not be the last ever, with Five TV reportedly in negotiations to perform the resurrection.
Big Brother is car crash television at its most explosive and it nearly claimed its first real fatality earlier this week as Nadia Almada, the Portuguese transsexual winner of series five, was rushed to hospital following an alleged suicide attempt.
Like the late Jade Goody, the 33-year-old gained notoriety through her antics in Big Brother house and was unable to cope with the intense scrutiny she was thrust into the spotlight upon her release.
For every self-proclaimed 'jungle cat' and tantrum-throwing child masquerading as a 26-year-old woman in the BB cacophony, there is at least one mentally unstable person who took the opportunity of having their 15 minutes at face value rather than looking at the implications.
Not everyone who enters the show is able to deal with the psychological impact being splashed across national newspapers on a regular basis or being subjected to intense and sometimes vitriolic heckling from a live studio audience of several hundreds.
So as we look back on the mind numbing, spirit crushing game show that Mark Renton summed up so effortlessly in the motion picture Trainspotting, we can be forgiven for shedding few tears that after 11 series and 10 celebrity spin-offs the curtain has finally fallen.
But it was good while it lasted, wasn't it...?
Giant Spectacular Waste of Money
(Sun 22/04)
The End of the World
(Sun 10/07)
A Taste of Their Own Medicine
(Sat 04/12)
A Dangerous Precedent
(Tue 23/11)
...And the Circus Leaves Town
(Sat 11/09)
