Faking It

A quick recap of the last couple of weeks in BBUK as the housemates face the Seven Deadly Sins before Big Brother unleashes Fake Week.

WEEK FIVE: SEVEN DEADLY SINS

The weekly task saw seven housemates, chosen by “insightful” Carole, having to absolve themselves of the seven deadly sins.    Amanda fought off pride by wearing a hot dog costume, while Ziggy had to battle gluttony by attending a banquet where he couldn’t eat the food.

Tracey’s greed was tested by a series of tempting offers from Big Brother – including cash, tobacco and a car, all of which she refused, while Nicky had to learn to appreciate herself in the “Room of Nicky” to overcome the sin of envy.

Liam’s lustful ways were tested by Big Brother trying to seduce him, while Laura had to overcome sloth by completing a mini-marathon.

All those six sins were absolved successfully, but Charley couldn’t overcome wrath and manage three days without an argument – resulting in her being sent to the sinbin while the others enjoyed a night of sin and excess.

During the task Jonathan left the house after receiving the news his 104 grandmother had died, while Chanelle and Laura learnt they could be leaving the house in the more traditional manner, with Laura being the one to be evicted at the end of the week.

WEEK SIX: FAKE WEEK

As one week drew to a close, “Fake Week” was unveiled in which nothing would be quite what is seems.   It began with the housemates being shown footage of Australian housemate Pauline learning that she had been chosen to move to the Big Brother UK house, with HMs later shown footage of Laura in the BB Aus diary room too – which was located about 300 yards away in the Big Brother studios.

A series of Australian tasks followed, including the Bush Tricker Trial in which housemates had to identify a range of Australian food, mainly made up of tofu and fish bought from the nearest supermarket (which is in fact right next door to the house!).   An Australian soap and Kylie tribute followed before the housemates discovered the truth – Pauline wasn’t from Australia.

Big Brother though had let a shocked Brian in on the secret earlier, who was disappointed that the house sceptics would be proved right and his dream was ruined.

With Pauline gone Fake Week continued with Big Brother calling all housemates to the sofa and announcing that three housemates broke a fundamental rule of the show and must report to the diary room.   Of course the crime hadn’t occurred, so it was no surprise the housemates couldn’t identify themselves, with Big Brother then carrying out his threat to punish all the housemates, with the housemates sent in threes to the Vestibule to do tasks such as reattach sweetcorn to the cob, watch paint dry and cut fake grass with nail scissors.

In the afternoon though Fake Week reached new heights – literally, when BB locked the housemates in the garden under the pretence of maintenance and flew a plane over with a banner saying “There is Another House”.

The penultimate act of Fake Week was to involve the housemates in the global peace initiative “Warmth not Waste – piece of peace”.   This involved the housemates wearing T-shirts saying “I’m not a Waster” and sending messages of piece around the world in various languages, most of which translated along the lines of “I’m an idiot and haven’t got a clue what I’m saying”.

FAKE EVICTION

The final act of Fake Week though was a surreal one – a fake eviction.   The evictee would leave the house, be interviewed and then return – unaware the housemates would be watching the interview too.

Charley and Nicky faced the public vote, and it was Charley they decided to fake evict – but Big Brother decided to make the Friday 13th eviction very surreal.

Firstly, when Charley left the house the crowd remained absolutely silent, just holding signs saying “This is not an audience”.

Davina was then possessed by the spirit of the Chenbot and delivered the interview in a robotic like trance, beginning with a statement from Big Brother which made it clear that she was working on behalf of Big Brother, and hence beginning every question with the words “Big Brother would like to know…” and reading out all the stage directions too.

The housemates watched on as Charley discovered who nominated her – and was shocked that more than two people had the nerve to nominate her.   She then spoke of why she didn’t get on with Chanelle, how she thought Ziggy was playing a game and her disgust that Liam (the nice guy of the house) had the nerve to nominate her.

Big Brother then showed her clips of her argumentative side and Charley did seem genuinely embarrassed about her behaviour and said if she went back in she wouldn’t want to act like that – but when she learnt she really was going back in, that attitude seemed to have vanished.

Davina, still in her robotic trance, dragged Charley back to the studio and this time the crowd were allowed to do whatever they liked – so as Charley was making her way back in, the crowd were chanting “Get Charley Out”.    Charley though remained oblivious to the hatred and by the time she got back in the house in her head all the “Get Charley Out” banners were six foot signs of massive support.   She now thinks the public loves her- the stupid bitch!

As for Fake Week – most people said it would be “Make or Break” for Big Brother 8, but unfortunately it’s not quite had the effect people hoped – though I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was “break”.   Thaila, aka Pauline, was certainly outed a couple of days too soon – and outed pretty poorly too, while I think most people would have preferred the Fake Eviction to be done with a proper exit and proper interview.   I can’t quite make up my mind on that yet – I’m still confused by the whole thing to be honest.

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