What is the point of watching ITV I'm A Celeb All-stars with Janice Dickinson if it is pre-recorded?

There is no need for the All Star celebrities to shout ‘I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here’ when the ITV show airs tonight because the likes of Amir Khan, Helen Flanagan and Carol Vorderman will be watching the premiere from their own couches.

The inaugural All Star series with Ant and Dec at the helm will see previous contestants and some former winners head to South Africa to tackle Bush Tucker trials. However, the three-week long series has already been decided (including the first ever I’m A Celebrity Legend) due to it being pre-recorded last summer.

Originally planned to air in November 2022, the ITV cast and crew wrapped up the 2023 All Star season last July when they flew to Kruger National Park, South Africa with Ant and Dec sharing behind the scenes photos on Instagram at the time.

While they filmed this in advance as a safety net in case the team were not allowed back into Australia to film the normal series at Christmas, due to tight Coronavirus restrictions, I query whether this pre-recorded version will serve the opposite purpose and create the danger of low viewing numbers as a result of the series already being decided and the winner already crowned…

Over the past 21 years that I’m A Celebrity has been airing whether it be in Australia or Wales, families have enjoyed curling up in the lounge with a box of chocolates, looking forwards to Christmas Day and voting for contestants (cough, Matt Hancock) to take part in gruelling trials. The ITV show had the perfect recipe.

Now, the power has been taken out of the viewers’ hands for the first time ever and instead campmates such as Janice Dickinson, Jordan Banjo, Fatima Whitbread and Paul Burrell will fight against one another to be in with a chance of winning the whole series.

After originally appearing in the sixteenth series in 2016, Carol Vorderman acknowledged that the show transformed from what it was before, albeit the trials still being difficult, and the level of competition was immense:

“It’s quite a different set up, isn’t it?” Carol said on The One Show, “The trials are brutal, quite honestly, brutal. And to get rid of people, if you like, it was all head-to-head trials, so competitive.”

Off the back of Carol’s comments, while some may argue it is great that we can get an insight into life in camp ahead of the series, others may worry, or indeed try to dig for  spoilers regarding who has won or exited the show each week to save them an hour and 40 minutes each night.

The majority of us look for life hacks these days or spoilers for our favourite shows to satisfy that itch we can’t quite scratch, and so I fear for the inaugural I’m A Celebrity All Star series that the savvier users of the internet will be able to figure out the results and share them, thus rendering the 2023 series pointless.

It is also crucial to mention the timing of the series hitting screens as this too may impact whether it is worth watching or not.

Spring has started to well and truly ‘spring’ with flowers blossoming and weather reporters suggesting a heat wave is approaching just weeks away, therefore will people want to stay inside by the television or head outside to catch the last light and warmer evenings?

This reasoning could also be backed up by the viewing figures of ITV2’s Love Island winter series as the February season only racked up an audience of 1.2 million people, which is half the stats compared to its usual slot in summer.

Audiences are creatures of habit so while the aspect of an All Star series was inviting, the realisation of when it is airing and the fact that we do not have the chance to decide who takes part in trials, let alone wins, may be a bit off-putting and dare we say, pointless?