Actually,
@Benjamin2012HM I do have a question for you. I
asked this same question to
@Timdormer but he never replied to it, so I was wondering if you might be interested in it.
As you have mentioned, you've watched and auditioned for Big Brother for many years prior to 2012 and you obviously share a love for the show that I, as well as the rest of us here, also do. The majority of us are avid, diehard fans of BB who have also watched it day in, day out since 2001 and in turn have watched the BBAU franchise evolve in a number of different ways over the years since its inception, both in good ways and in bad. But as we all know, the Big Brother we have today isn't exactly the same Big Brother we originally had six years ago, not only due to the varied public's perception of it nowadays but also due to the level of content we now receive by the program.
While an understandable change, the current format of Channel 9's self-proclaimed "family-friendly" nature of Big Brother has been subjected to a varied response among fans due to the fact that a lot of the content aired during the Daily Shows often seems contrived and "scripted" in the sense that sometimes we feel as though the producers are trying to manipulate circumstances to the point where they don't feel honest enough. What are your thoughts on this? There have been far too many instances since Channel 9 took over Big Brother where it felt as though the producers weren't giving (or were too afraid to let) the HM's react and do things by their own accord, therefore creating situations to purport the entertainment themselves. This has become increasingly obvious every year that the programme airs on Channel 9 and I felt like the occasional Diary Room Dilemma's from last year, among other examples, became one of several instances of this.
I'm asking because because, as you know, the original concept of Big Brother was to isolate a bunch of people and let them converse with one another in a true, untouched environment, as opposed to one that has been forced upon them. The creation of the Little Sister spin-off during your season, as well as last year's Late Night Feast, turned me the wrong way because they seemed to go against everything the show was originally about. Don't get me wrong, I am totally grateful that Channel 9 finally allowed Big Brother some leniency in giving viewers some "mature" content (both last year and even this year so far), however the limitations of Late Night Feast's weekly event created what felt like a very artificial atmosphere to me. Rather than airing natural discussions or conversations of the same level between HM's from various points throughout the season (which I'm
sure there was
plenty of!), they opted to go for a weekly party that consisted of the exact same structure every week and prompted the HM's with preempted questions to "get the ball rolling".
So, what I'm curious to know is how did going into the Big Brother house with the knowledge that the Channel 9 version was slightly more "filtered", so to speak, rather than as open and free as the original Channel 10 series affect your time in there? Did being in the house in 2012 live up to any expectations you may have had when you first auditioned for Big Brother or when you were shortlisted in the past? And did it affect the way you played the game, especially under the presumption that no live feeds meant a lot of what you could be saying/doing might not have reached the public at all?
P.S. I past you once at Greyhound in Melbourne and I only realised it was you literally moments after we walked by each other. So this is me saying hi now!
