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Ofcom was determined to hobble Channel 4’s efforts to make last night’s Big Brother 8 launch feel good.

First came an enforced flagellating mea culpa for the Shilpa Shetty race row. This visit to the headmaster’s study went on for ages. But no “formal sanction”, admitting “serious failures in the compliance process”, was going to spoil Endemol’s big night.

Davina McCall showed us around a deliberately bizarre house: cooker in the bedroom; fridge in the garden; bath in the living room; outsized beds. There’s even a nod to Green politics with a water tower.

McCall reported that she liked to sleep with a pillow wedged between her legs, and showed us how. Take that, Ofcom.

The first housemates to arrive in this initially all-female show were the deranged twins, who spoke and squealed as one: at each other, the crowd, and at all the subsequent arrivals at the house. Posh Lesley, horrified, immediately hit the champagne.

Traditionally, in their videoed introductions, the housemates brag about how they’re going to cause trouble. This year’s sorority were hardly bad girls. An early favourite is Tracey, a cleaner and raver, up “for proper havin’ it”, whom the crowd loved. Emily, a drama student from Bristol, is a Cameroonian Tory.

Many of the younger women fitted a type: one dressed like Lily Allen, another looked like Amy Winehouse, another was related to a premiership footballer (and was booed for being happily unemployed) and another was a dead ringer for Victoria Beckham. The biggest cheer came for Carole, a “divorced, bisexual sexual health worker” who careered into the house determined to rouse us out of political apathy.

To emphasise the new, responsible Big Brother, Nicky, a 27-year-old Irish-Indian, said people assumed she was a Muslim or Hindu. She was in fact Catholic. Big Brother’s message? Now try and do us for racial insensitivity, Ofcom.

So, a relatively restrained opening night. Has the show gone worthy? A man will be introduced to the sisterhood on Friday, McCall promised. My guess is Lesley will have them basket-weaving and discussing The Colour Purple by then. The only hope for dysfunction is Carole leading the gang to revolution and the twins who have already misidentified the diary room as a tanning salon. Ah, welcome back BB.

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