Big Brother: An aptly tawdry climax to a prurient freak show

"May the best man ... or woman win", said the Channel 4 announcer just before the year's largest exercise in participatory stupidity. "Celebrate the fact that you live in a democracy", Davina McCall had urged "Use your vote!".

And about eight million people had, giving Channel Four another cash injection, and £70,000 pounds to Kate Lawler – the first woman to win a in a Big Brother series and the contestant eventually tipped by the bookies to take the prize.

Only her most devoted friends could really have believed that "best" had anything to do with it, though. Davina McCall, professionally obliged to puff the event just short of bursting, described her as "awesome, awesome" as she announced the result. But excess of merit was hardly relevant in a competition where the merest flicker of character was treated as evidence of genius.

Jade Goody had been the first to leave what she calls the "Big Bruvver Harse" – emerging to frenzied cheers from the crowd. Having turned her into the programme's most cruelly abused underdog both the public and the tabloids appear to have decided that enough was enough. 1.4 million people voted for her to win and she discovered that she had celebrity support too; she was reduced to tears of joy to discover that she had become an object of pity for Johnny Depp.

Channel 4 even appear to have laid on a personal stalker for her – an alarmingly intense character who shouted declarations of love during her interview. To appear deranged in this hysterical gathering was an amazing achievement – but he somehow managed.

Shortly after 10 o'clock, Jade was joined by Alex who emerging into the floodlit internment camp outside the house with the dazed relief of someone who'd just staggered from a Beirut cellar. In his final statement from inside the house he'd been showing signs of psychological distress – mumbling about the personal lessons he'd absorbed – but by the time he came to sit opposite Davina McCall he could barely speak.

Jonny, the Geordie fireman, was more composed – though he fell into a silent gape when shown a tape of Dustin Hoffman imitating him on the Graham Norton show. The fame might be transitory – but it comes with celebrity endorsement.

Jade's unexpectedly early departure from the house had given Channel 4 one small problem. How to spill the beans about the closest the series has come to a full blown sexual encounter, so close to the watershed?

They had cleverly planned ahead; Davina asked her to silently underscore a list of four intimate acts to establish exactly what had taken place beneath the duvet and, just after 11 o'clock, the waiting nation learnt that PJ had been the drunken recipient of "a hand job".

Add that edifying moment to the programme's other revisited highlights – a contestant urinating into the kitchen bin, Jonny snacking on someone's toenail clipping, a medley of tearful backbiting and hypocrisy – and you had a perfectly fitting end to a series.