I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! 9 UK

The 9th season of I'm A Celebrity got underway in the UK last night. Whilst Big Brother UK has been going downhill in recent years, I'm A Celebrity has been getting better and better. Overnight ratings show that yesterdays launch show got over 9 million viewers which is very high.

The launch show followed the familiar format that we have seen in recent years. We were first introduced to the celebrities. I have to say that I had not heard of most of them, which is unusual for me as I am usually familiar with most IAC contestants. Perhaps I am spending too much time watching reality shows and not much time watching soaps or cheap daytime cooking / DIY shows.

Before the celebrities started on their journey into camp, they had to choose 2 (a male and a female) to do the first bushtucker trial. Sam and Gino were chosen and they had to swin to an island where they would spend the night before doing their trial the next day.

The other 9 celebs were split into groups. Sabrina, Lucie and Colin entered camp by doing the skyjump. Camilla, Jimmy, Stuart and Justin went on horseback. Finally the 2 oldies Kim (67) and George (70) walked into camp.

The following day, Sam and Gino did their bushtucker trial. The first part invloved them putting their hands in containers filled with things like crabs and octopus to find stars. For the second part they had to put a live water spider in their mouths for 30 seconds. The 3rd part was putting their heads into yabbis and beach worms to grab a star. And for the final part Sam had to search through a cabin containing eels and crabs to find 2 stars (which she failed to find) and Gino had to where a helmit containing spiders for 90 seconds (which he achieved).

At the end of the trial they had 9 out of 11 stars which meant there would be 9 meals and 9 beds in camp. It wasn't exactly a memorable trial, most of the elements we had seen before and neither of the celebs freaked out much over what they had to do.

The rest of the launch show was taken up with the celebrities first night in camp. They are all getting on well for the moment, although that is pretty standard, it usually takes a couple of days before the sparks start flying.

Also, the public voted for who they wanted to do the next bushtucker trial which was called "Dreaded Descent". The one with the most votes was Kim, and we will see her doing the trial on Monday's show. She isn't the person I would have chosen as I think the best people doing the trials are the ones that will be useless at them and I think Kim will cope well with the trials. She is used to dirt, grime and creepy crawlies from her job so I doubt the trial will phase her. But she is the loudest and most outspoken contestant at the moment and they are always the ones that the public choose for the trials.

At the end of the show the hosts revealed the "big surprise" that we had been promised at the start. The may have hoped it would be a big surprise but as it has been front page on the national newspapers for the last week, it was not a surprise for us and will not be one for any of the contestants. The "surprise" was that Katie Price (aka Jordan) would be entering as the 12th contestant. For those of you who don't know, she was a contestant back in season 3 and her romance with fellow contestant Peter Andre was probably the main talking point throughout that years show. She is now going back into the jungle and I'm sure the producers will be hoping that she stirs things up a lot - we shall see.

I thought the launch show was OK. I'd rate it as average so far. Nothing too memorable happened but it wasn't boring. I won't give my opinions on each of the contestants at this stage as a lot of them were mainly in the background and I don't really have much of an opinion at the moment.

So that's the end of my review of the launch show. If you want to continue with the blog then drop me an e-mail and I would be happy to let you.