The blog with no name

I’m struggling for a title this week – so be prepared for some random ramblings, plus a brief round up of the latest BBUK activity.

I’m going to start with the Ice Cave – the first thing in several weeks which has caught my attention in BB07.

Yes, they may have done the camping thing before – and yes, other countries may have had twists on the same premise before – but for once that didn’t really matter.

Firstly, the producers just about managed not too screw this twist up – letting it play out over the week and not seemingly making it up as it went along.

And secondly, and this is my new buzz phrase, it was an “original interpretation” of a twist seen elsewhere, even in regards to the camping in BB Aus. They took the basic idea but managed to turn it into a twist of their own without compromising the twist themselves.

And for that, I’ll congratulate the producers. It was well executed and pretty well timed too – though of course it’s a shame we haven’t seen anything near that calibre of creativity earlier in the season.

ORIGINAL INTERPRETATION

It’s that phrase again – and it’s an important one. Alot of people seem to misunderstand our criticism of reusing BBUK tasks, but it’s all down to creativity – so if they can’t come up with something themselves, at least when using borrowed ideas, they should try and add their own original twist to them to make something new – and at the same time, not completely screw it up in the process.

Therefore, when it was revealed that Big Brother had gone away and not left an automated version of itself in charge, I tried to avoid jumping in with the criticism and instead wait to see how it played out.

It turns out though perhaps I was giving the producers too much credit. “Automated Big Brother” made the twist on BBUK – and although it wasn’t necessary to be incorporated into Australia’s equivalent, they really did need something else to maintain the interest in the twist.

And this is where the phone could have really come in useful – rather than just using it to check up on the housemates, Big Brother could have upped the ante by setting secret “Insider” style secret missions for whoever they were communicating with (Joel) – and then perhaps we wouldn’t have seen the housemates rule themselves so strictly.

Though that itself is down to Big Brother’s petty authority over the series – it seems he probably suppresses the characters of the housemates rather than encouraging them.

NOMINATIONS

Unfair and sexist maybe – but who gives a shit? Four duds are up for eviction, and for once I’m relieved it’s a double.

The gender imbalance needed addressing and for once there is no denying – even by the producers – that they’ve fixed proceedings to ensure two of the boring blokes go.

However, surely they could have been more cunning about it. It’s pretty obvious that the “biggest threat” twist a couple of weeks ago (which I didn’t really agree with) was intended to see a man walking out of the door, but it spectacularly backfired.

The obvious way to fix this weeks nominations was to allow just the Intruders to nominate – I’m assuming Michelle and Zach are more likely to nominate the boys than the girls, but of course that too could backfire. However, perhaps that would be worth the risk.

AND FINALLY IN BBUK

So here we’ve gone from an all-girl house to a fairly even split of 8 girls and 7 men – but will it see an end to the bitching?   Probably not until Charley is evicted.

The four new fellas are all straight (so they claim), and all quite different.   Billi is a 25 year-old model who seems to have slipped through the audition process, while Jonathan, 49, is a millionaire businessman and former journalist.   Liam, 22, is a tree-surgeon who was an instant hit with the girls, while Brian, 19, works in IT and seems to have met half the housemates at the auditions.

Half an hour after they arrived the first eviction finally occured.   Earlier in the week, last Friday’s new intruders had selected the twins to join them in being the only housemates to nominate this week – and as a result Carole, Shabnam and Tracey all faced the public vote.   With 81..4% of the eviction votes, Shabnam got the boot, and didn’t enhance her popularity by taking forever to leave the house – even stopping to sing and dance for the crowd on the eviction balcony – much to their disgust!

Now with the guys finally providing a match for the girls, for many BBUK has now begun and it’s already evident from just one daily show what a difference they’ve made.    It feels like Big Brother once again – not the ladies toilets in a local nightclub!

Keep up to date with BBUK in the International Forum, while there is a full live rundown of each week’s eviction show at our sister site Being Big Brother.   Also catch a rundown of each week’s events in the last 15-minutes or so of BBBA Radio, which airs live at 7pm on “Satdays” and can be downloaded from Sundays.  

P.S.  We’ve not posted any guest blogs lately – so anyone feeling like an extended rant, send them in to the Mailbag.