BBUK: The End (SPOILERS)

Until next year

And so we’ve reached the end of Big Brother 9 - so it’s time for the final round up of the series.

SURPRISE

Big Brother Australia never quite got the concept of surprise evictions, always completely ruining them by telling the housemates a surprise eviction would take place.

Not so in the UK where two tactics usually come into play - either a housemate getting called into the diary room, never to return - or, as we saw this week, a simple interruption from Davina and 30 seconds notice to leave the house.

So as the final seven all dressed up as Mohamed as part of a task, Davina interupted and evicted Mohamed himself - and the housemates weren’t happy, especially Kat.   She was even unhappier 20 minutes later when she was evicted herself, much to the shock of the housemates who all had her labelled the winner.

THE FINAL FIVE

It turned out to be the closest final for years with no more than around 10% separating first and last place when it came to finale night.   In fifth place it was Darnell, who despite being hated for the last couple of weeks for his behaviour towards Sara came out to cheers.

Next out in fourth place was Rex, by far the most entertaining housemate of the series.   He was never afraid to say what he thought, and ultimately that probably cost him - though his real undoing was when his girlfriend Nicole was sent in as a housemate with 5 weeks to go.   It’s arguable if she hadn’t gone in, he’d have come out the winner of the series.

In third place it’s Australia’s very own Sara, who joined the series after 4 weeks.   Darnell and to a lesser extent Rex’s behaviour towards her certainly boosted her appeal, but it was her survival against Lisa the week before which really boosted her chances - and saw her cut from a rank outsider to one of the top three favourites.

And now its down to two as Davina links to the house and reveals that Mikey is not the winner.   Thank god, he’d have only won it because he was blind considering he was one of the vilest housemates ever - but while Rex got chastised for speaking his mind (in a funny and entertaining way), Mikey seemed to be praised for his straight talking - and unfortunately it even continued during his interview when Mikey didn’t think twice about slagging off the housemates he didn’t like.

GET OFF THE FENCE AND GET OUT

And so just one person remains in the house - Rachel.   So boring, so annoying, so unentertaining it appears Big Brother forgot to evict her weeks ago.   They finally get her to leave though by paying her off with a £100,000 cheque - and there are celebrations as she leaves with fireworks lighting up the skies as the dullest housemate ever leaves our screens.   So dull she barely features in the series best bits which conclude the series.

IN CONCLUSION…

So that was Big Brother 9 - the lowest rated series of all time, but one the fans generally approve of.

There is certainly pretty much unanimous agreement it was far better than last series, and most people liked how it felt more like one of the early series with little interference to the nomination and eviction process - it’s certainly the purest series for five years.

It was refreshing too to have a relatively normal bunch of housemates compared to the so called “freak shows” of yesteryear - but perhaps in the end we suffered from that and ended up with a rather uninspiring group of finalists.   Personally though I’d put that down to the way the evictions panned out, with week after week viewers voting out the interesting housemates over the dullards - which meant the most entertaining evictions for years, but a rather dull final week.

Big Brother will be back next year for it’s tenth summer series, but before that is the much anticipated return of Celebrity Big Brother in January, which is expected to be confirmed in the next couple of weeks.   Davina has noticeably enjoyed this series too, unlike her fake enthusiasm for last year, so there is no doubt she’ll be back, while George Lamb appears to be sticking around on Little Brother too - though his sidelined sidekick Zezi is likely to get the chop.

P.S.  Did I mention I’m not a fan of Rachel?