Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack was a special series of Celebrity Big Brother, a spin-off series of the British reality television programme Big Brother. It was broadcast on E4 from 3 January - 28 January 2008. A number of closely associated programmes also aired on the same channel. Dermot O'Leary - who had hosted Big Brother's Little Brother since 2001 - was the main host of Celebrity Hijack, and it was his final series of Big Brother. The series was announced on 8 October 2007 by Channel 4 and that it would be replacing Celebrity Big Brother in January 2008, due to the widely publicised racism controversy in Celebrity Big Brother 5. In 2009, Celebrity Big Brother returned to Channel 4 and no further series' of Celebrity Hijack were produced. The premise of the series saw one celebrity a day taking control, with the help of Big Brother; organising their own tasks, making their own rules and talking to the housemates in the Diary Room. They were in charge of a set of housemates, ranging in age from 18–21 years old and all having a special talent. The housemates competed to be the last to leave the house for a £50,000 prize. The series ended on 28 January where John Loughton was voted as the winner.

The Adventures of Shirley Holmes is a Canadian mystery TV series that originally aired from 1997 to 2000. The show was created by Ellis Iddon and Phil Meagher who had produced a successful series of books with Harper Collins, teaming up with Credo and Forefront to develop the TV series. Filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the series follows the life of Shirley Holmes, the great grand-niece of Sherlock Holmes who, with the help of ex-gang member Bo Sawchuk, tackles a variety of mysteries in and around the fictional Canadian city of Redington. On some occasions, she found herself matching wits with archnemesis Molly Hardy. The show has been broadcast in over 80 countries and has been dubbed in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Norwegian, Polish and Turkish. Her performance in the show led to actress Meredith Henderson being nominated for a Gemini Award in 1998 and winning one in 1999. The show itself was twice nominated for a Gemini Award in the category "Best Children's or Youth Program or Series" in 1998 and eventually won it in 1999. In the spring of 1998 Susin Nielsen won a Gemini Award in the category "Best Writing in a Children's or Youth Program" for her screenplay of the episode "The Case of the Burning Building". In the same year, Elizabeth Stewart won a WGC Award from the Writers Guild of Canada for her writing of the episode "The Case of the Maestro's Ghost".