Behind Big Brother
For details of the live launch, as it happens (or happened if you’re reading later), click here for live show updates from bbspy. Thanks Matt.
And also courtesy of BB Spy, some pictures of the house – although not a lot to see so far, and details of this years massive launch night twist. If you don’t like spoilers, don’t sneak a peak.
It may be over in Australia, for now at least, but Big Brother returns for it’s tenth, and possibly penultimate, season in the UK next week.
The build up to this season has been more secretive than in recent years, with host Davina McCall claiming she “gasped” when she was informed of a twist planned for this year. Following Thursday nights launch show, an extra live show will air on Sunday night in which “Big Brother reveals some surprises that could send shockwaves through the house”.
Big Brother hasn’t been immune to the credit crunch, with a number of cut backs this year. For the first time since BB4, there are just two presenters associated with the show. As well as fronting the evictions, Davina McCall will also be presenting Big Brother’s Big Mouth, which has been cut from four to one episode a week, while George Lamb returns for his second series of fanzine show Big Brother’s Little Brother.
Diary Room Uncut has also been axed, but the decision which has angered the fans the most has been to scrap the 24/7 live feed. Live coverage will only be available from the house for just a few hours overnight.
Big Brother begins on C4 in the UK on Thursday 4th June. Check out the International Forum for the latest discussion, while bbspy has the latest news and rumours, including more of the adverts counting down to the launch.
So the end is nigh – and unless Big Brother has a sugar daddy waiting in the wings, this time it really could be the end. I can’t say I was surprised, and in it’s current state the show really did need to be put out of it’s misery rather than remaining on life support for another couple of years.
Having said that though I do believe that alot has been learnt from this season and in a similar way to how Kris Noble took a year before putting his stamp on the format with the changes made in BB05, BB09 could have been a turning point for the franchise once again now that Rory and Virginia had a season under their belt – but only if Ten gave them the freedom to make the changes required, even if it did leave a two-hour hole in their Friday night schedules.
So let’s take a look back at the positives – and not so positives – of the last few months.
THE GOOD
THE BAD
THE CELEBRITIES
More than anything I think this season will be defined by the unwanted influx of “celebrity” guests.
Overall this season hasn’t been the greatest, but I think it escapes the tag as the worst – and most importantly, this year the producers seemed to be willing to make changes as the season progressed which led to a much better second half of the season – and it’s a shame they won’t have the chance to put their lessons into practice next year.
Comment on our userblogs
The great thing about our very own Userblogs is when you can’t be bothered writing your own blog, you can just cut and paste someone elses. Unlike certain sections of the media though, we’ll give the credit where credit is due…
So firstly, clairebbbear blames YouTube:
Death by youtube: how generation Y killed Big Brother Australia
Just like death, and taxes, the end of BB was always inevitable.
It would have been nice for BB to have gone out in style, with a dramatic flourish at its execution, but today’s news feels like euthanasia after a prolongued period of suffering, during which the show lost all traces of what it once was.
The post-mortem has not yet been conducted, and I am sure that it will reveal multiple causes of death, ranging from the producers, to the hosts, to the apathy of the audience and the concept as a whole.
But I feel that the actual reason can be traced to a factor that could not have been anticipated back in 2001. That factor is youtube, and more precisely what it offers to the young viewers on whom BB depended.
BB has always been a young person’s show, especially in Australia. The 7pm timeslot, the voyeurism factor, the preference for pretty HMs and the dominance of storylines that belong in the schoolyard all helped BB become required viewing for teenagers and young adults. With the young viewers came sponsors, and in the beginning they were falling over themselves to be involved with a program that spoke to young viewers like no other show.
Then came youtube. It is not a direct rival to BB, but its presence has hung over the show – and in fact channel Ten as a whole – like a curse.
Meanwhile bb-06 doesn’t blame Jackie O:
My last blog?
Well…I’m guessing this could be my last blog. There’s no ‘next year’ and I’m certainly not wasting my time writing a blog about the final week of this crap series. I’m not even sure I’ll watch. Hell, there’s a Daily Show on now and I have a DVD menu up on my screen.
In my last blog I talked about a couple of positives about BB08 and one of them was Jackie-O. I remember something I read on the internet at the beginning of this year about Jackie-O being the touch of death for television series – naming all the flops she’d been a part of. Well, she’s got another flop to add to her resume but it was not a flop because of her. She was one of the very few positive points about this years Big Brother and while I’m not claiming she had the presence of Gretel – she did have the grace and that little bit of class in this years BB gave it same moments that were worth watching. So take it easy on here.
Kyle, on the other hand, does deserve to be blamed in my stage. If he hadn’t been so keen to act like a total prat and had tried to get some likability about himself – people would have watched. A smile was all that was needed – but it was too much to ask of Kyle ‘All Talk and No Action’ Sandilands. While I very much doubt that Jackie-O reads this site – my advice to her to is to get away from him. Having seen you on stage with Mike and Kyle this year – you’re so much more entertaining when you’re not weighed down with the former. You’ll have a better career without him, if you ask me.
These new producers made a hell of a lot of mistakes – they produced a ‘made to order’ Big Brother this year and I don’t believe that they for one second thought they’d given us something new. Ten is a network without imagination, without the courage to try something new and that’s why it is, and always will be, a network without success. Why they wanted to continue with Kris Noble’s unsuccesful format when they could have picked up where Abbott’s left off and had a successful show is beyond me. These producers made some bad decisions and I said some bad things about them – but at the end of the day I realise they did the best they could to please the fans while keeping within the strict outline set for them.
Yes – the blame for killing Big Brother lies squarely on Ten’s shoulders.
So what do you think about Big Brother being pulled from the schedules next year – and where did it all go wrong? Post your blog entry here.
As for myself, not surprised at all, and not before time. Perhaps it will return one day, but it’s got to be kept as far away from Ten as physically possible.
OK, this season hasn’t been the best – in fact, it’s been a challenger for the worst, but at least since they reverted back to the original format it’s felt more like Big Brother again. Nominations, even more so than evictions, are the key part of the format and in the first few weeks of the series the show lost it’s soul. Also to be praised is the lack of Intruders – if we forget the gatecrashers, which I think we all have anyway.
However, if BB09 goes ahead the show needs to be given every chance to succeed – and that means more change is required.
TIME
Firstly, and most crucially, the time slot. The extended shows always perform significantly better after 7.30pm, and always seem far more popular too. So the first change is simple – move the weeknight shows to 7.30pm, extending them to an hour. And I’m in no doubt Ten could accommodate such a change considering nominations, midweek specials and FNL have filled the slot for years.
FNL
Talking of FNL, it’s an old one but it’s as relevant as ever – FNL is seriously over due a revamp. Firstly, axe Ryan so it’s no longer the BB boys club. Secondly, it’s slashed to an hour (8.30-9.30pm) so it’s straight to the point, rather than full of filler crap. And thirdly, it’s made with the Big Brother fan in mind, not their kids. Most importantly after four years of it being an individual competition the show is completely refocused with a new format and a renewed importance. The link with evictions is also removed.
LET BATTLE COMMENCE
What that change is depends on the series as a whole – and one tried and tested format would give both FNL, and Big Brother itself, the revamp it requires. Big Brother: The Battle – a revamped house, split into rich and poor, with up to 16 housemates split between the two sides. FNL then becomes the main “Battle” each week as the two sides of the house go head to head to claim their place on the rich side, with hot water, comfy beds and all the luxuries of the house, while the losers face the back to basics lifestyle – to the extreme.
The weekly task is also replaced by a series of ad-hoc challenges taking place randomly throughout the week either for rewards or for individual housemates to swap sides.
The format also allows for the nominations process to be revamped, and there are numerous ways it could be done. Each side of the house could nominate independently, with one from each side going head to head in the eviction vote. Other options include one side winning immunity, or perhaps linking it to the point system so the rich HMs nominations are worth 2 points and the poor HMs worth just the one. Or the nominations process could simply be left as it is, leaving the housemates themselves to decide how loyal to their own side of the house they are.
EVICTIONS
An absolute must – keep Mike Goldman as far away from them as physically possible. And they should certainly not bring back Gretel. Kyle and Jackie O have had the chance to bed in now and it’s important the show looks to the future, not too the past, so they should remain in charge next year. And them only being available one day a week has actually benefited the show this year, which hasn’t suffered from all the pointless midweek specials we had during Gretel’s final couple of years with the show.
And that’s the starting point to give BB09 a chance – it’s up to those paid to do the job to do the rest.
Any thoughts – comment on my userblog.
We’ve often posted here about how great BBUK is and how crap BB Australia is – and generally speaking in the last few years that’s been quite true, but there are still a few things where BBUK could benefit from their Australian counterpart.
Production wise in terms of the experience the housemates, and therefore the viewers, get has been far superior in BBUK, with better tasks, better twists and better housemates – with each year offering something different, rather than a carbon copy of the previous years.
However, when it comes to how the show is packaged there are things where BBUK could learn alot from BB Australia.
BUILDING THE HYPE
Beginning at the beginning, this years pre-season promo campaign was outstanding for BB Aus and really served it’s purpose in getting viewers interested in the show, and also indicating that there were changes in store for the new season. Meanwhile BBUK stuck to the standard format it has used for a few years – flashes of the new logo, “countdown” ads and the house ad – which only served to tell people Big Brother was back, but didn’t give any reason to watch, especially to those who deserted the show last year. The result – the lowest rated launch show since the live launches began in BB3.
Similarly promotion wise at the end of both the launch show, and especially the first eviction, the viewers were given very little reason to keep watching. We needed to be enticed with teasers of some changes to the rules or new tasks coming up – the promise of a wedding was not enough.
However, no hype means no let down. We all know how often BB Aus fails to deliver what it’s promised – with tonight’s big prize reveal being the latest example.
STOP TALKING!!!
Secondly the daily shows – as annoying as Mike Goldman is, at least he keeps it short and sweet. Marcus Bentley always seems to say 100 words when 10 will do, with his most annoying observation being that “all of the housemates are in the house”. Never – thank you for informing us none of them have popped down to the shops or out to the pub!
Worst of all though is how it’s assumed BBUK viewers have no memories, with long winded recaps of key events narrated to us by Marcus often two or three times in an episode, where either a “Previously…” segment at the beginning or just the basic assumption that viewers remember what happened yesterday would be much better.
Generally though of course our shows benefit from the longer running length – and especially the later time slot, meaning we’re not seeing a censored family friendly version of the housemates.
YOU ARE LIVE ON CHANNEL 4
Finally let’s talk about the live shows. With the launch show there are strong similarities between the both, but Davina’s house tour and the simple format of HM VT, walk through the crowd and straight into the house works much better in the UK. However, where BBUK really lets itself down is the evictions.
For the first four series the eviction shows really stood out as the highlight of the week, with a good balance of pre-eviction features including nominee profiles and chats with friends and family before Davina announced the result from the studio, with the very effective one minute walk from the studio to the house, which visually worked very well.
In BB5 they decided that the crowd outside deserved more of a show, so Davina moved out, the pre-eviction features were axed and the show basically became a standard highlights show with the eviction tagged on at the end. For the first time the house could hear the crowd when Davina linked to the house, and how they reacted to each nominee. In later years chants of “Get XXXX Out” became common place on eviction night too.
Although Big Brother soon realised that interviews with the evictee couldn’t be conducted effectively amongst the crowd, they stuck with Davina hosting outside and linking to the house amongst the baying crowd – until now. In what is pretty obviously a last minute decision, Davina is linking to the house from the silence of the studio again, which has widely been welcomed by viewers, but she still hosts the rest of the show outside.
This has only really highlighted how poorly produced our eviction shows have become lately – with the transfer from outdoors to studio being particularly messy. Unlike BB1-4, it’s obvious the studio isn’t designed with this in mind, but since BB5 the link to the studio hasn’t been there – and the show suffers for it.
Although BB Australia’s set up isn’t ideal, especially now with the cut from HM revolving out of the house to revolving out on stage, at least it still stands out as the eviction show. We don’t need an hour of highlights on eviction night – and sacrificing just 5-10 minutes for some simple features profiling the nominees and talking to friends and family really would make all the difference, along with designing the studio with a link to the outdoor crowd in mind, and then BBUK evictions really would be back at the top of their game.
BUT…
All that said though, so far Big Brother 9 in the UK seems to be heading in the right direction. IMO we’ve had the best first week since BB6 – the housemates and tasks so far are certainly more interesting than anything we had last year and in just a week it’s provided much more entertaining viewing than the last two months of BB08.
Add your comments here.