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BBAU Rewatch

Dean: You seriously diggin’ at your burger?

Vesna: Where do ya want me to dig at my burger?

Such an iconic moment that put Vesna on the map😂😭
 
Do we know whether Dreamworld kept / demolished the amphitheatre
 
Oh wow, ages ago. Thanks for digging that up!
 
I did a news reporting unit as an elective in university. I wanted to use this story (mainly the part of the house catching fire) for my assignment, but it wasn't "news worthy enough". Yet, the girl who sat next to me was able to write about the Masterchef Judges quitting.
 
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I did a news reporting unit as an elective in university. I wanted to use this story (mainly the part of the house catching fire) for my assignment, but it wasn't "news worthy enough". Yet, the girl who sat next to me was able to write about the Masterchef Judges quitting.
Ugh, I do not miss my j-school days.
 
Wow, I feel like I blinked and I was finished with 2014. And to be as concise as possible, I feel like I watched a whole lot of nothing. The series is just as bad, if not worse on a binge than it was airing live. Could Nine make it any more obvious that they didn't even want to do the show? It just feels like they were like "The Block and The voice are so great, and oh yeah, we have to do Big Brother as well....". It's just like reading an assignment from a student that they clearly put no effort or care into. Towards the end of my rewatch I became so disinterested in what I was watching that I just let it play in the background. Similarly, when I was watching it air I gave up towards the end and stopped watching the daily shows. This season is just so piss poor it's not even fun to talk about. I had to force myself to write this review and my thoughts on the housemates. It is possible I have become exhausted from this after doing so for so long, but I was yet to watch a season that I didn't want to write about until now.

The beginning had promise, the cast on paper looked fun, and the first week was actually enjoyable believe it or not. I don't even know what happened specifically to make me lose interest, it was portably just a culmination of everything that was wrong with the season. The duo's twist was unnecessary and uneventful. Nothing eventuated from it (mainly due to reasons I will elaborate on) and it was abandoned a lot earlier than I thought it would have. The split multiple evictions were something I did like the idea of, but not every single week for the entire fucking season. A lot of characters went far too early which could have helped the season maintain some interest, but instead the elimination process is powered through. The use of the deadly dozen superpower was yet another example of the lack of care or effort anyone put into the season.

The HoH and ultimate power that was teased pre-season ended up being nothing but disappointed. Most of the power plays revolved around winning money or were just there for filler. 80% of the edit within the daily shows covered nothing more than just the tasks or gimmicks that occurred at the time. Everyone lacks complexity and there are minimal storylines present in the series. At the time it was just so shitty to lose the live updates from the website. And just to rub salt into the wound the 2014 daily shows didn't even feature footage from every day. The Sunday daily shows only featured one night over the weekend, and when Friday and Sundays were dropped the Monday daily shows only featured two days worth of the four days the show was off-air. There was such a lack of featured content I have no confidence that anything that made the edit was shown incomplete truth. Getting rid of a third of the weekly episodes also made half of the week consist of live shows with Sonia Kruger. These live shows further decreased the amount of content that could be shown within the allotted time. Everything was just so gimmicky, overproduced and uninteresting. I struggled to actually care about the episodes or characters compared to other seasons. This is the only season that I completely did not enjoy rewatching. The reason why I didn't share many notable moments from the season, is because there weren't any.

It is a real shame, 2012 had a very strong foundation on which it was produced and 2013 featured some fun additions that could have assisted in the show's success had the network given their all to the show rather than being too scared to do no more than the bare minimum. 2014 had potential, it was all just destroyed by the preproduction decisions and the lack of care. I don't think the cast was that bad either, if they were shown more they could have been an average bunch at worst. There were people who on paper seemed interesting (such as Katie, Jake, Lisa, Aisha, Jason, Sandra, Sam etc). But a lot of the characters are either buried by the edit and format or were quickly evicted. Adding four intruders in towards the end was a stupid decision as was evicting three housemates in week 8. Any hope of getting to know the (now) smaller cast in those last weeks was destroyed and instead, four newbies were added in who also got buried by the edit.

I don't think there needs to be much else said? A lot of it was just poorly done. Now obviously what I'm about to say is a bit of a moot point as I am basing a lot of my thoughts on a rewatch, but the main reason for this season's disastrous ratings was mostly due to the later time slot and constant fucking around with the schedule. Watching the show eight years at 8:40 PM and sometimes finishing at like 10:10 PM on school nights made it impossible to commit to the show consistently. And then once the block finished it was only given the 7:30 time slot briefly for eviction shows? And then later ditched in favour of the Big Bang and shoved to Go. Didn't Rod Morris say on his podcast with Reggie that half the time they had no idea when they were even going to air? It was an exhausting effort to watch live and it was an exhausting effort to watch again years later. This season is a prime example of how a network needs to give Big Brother its entire heart and soul's worth of dedication. If you don't do the show properly you're not gonna get the ratings.

Disclaimer for my housemates thoughts, they are not as in-depth as my previous ones are. They are a lot shorter except for a select few. I also am basing these off of what I watched from the daily shows, as I don't really care enough to throw in everything that went on outside of the show in my thoughts. So don't expect anything amazing. It's more like I'm talking about characters in a scripted show.
 
Gemma: She was really awkward to watch back. She didn’t mesh very well with the cast at all and it seems she made a lot of them feel uncomfortable. Her strategy of causing drama to purposely get airtime in order to stay was bizarre. She relied a bit too much on being paired with Jake to stay in the game, as an individual she would never have managed to last long anyway. Her eviction was obviously very uneasy viewing. But I can’t say I liked her very much at all.

Dion: He was a lot nicer and likeable than I remembered him being. I wouldn’t have minded if he lasted a tad longer. I liked his friendship with Jason. I also found him a lot hotter this time around. Not much of an opinion all around though.

Katie: She came across as such a mean girl. Bitchy, on her high horse and was shown to be condescending towards Skye. It was interesting to watch her disagree with Priya, I wanted her to last a bit longer. I didn’t particularly enjoy watching her with Lisa run the house early on, but there was potential there for her to be involved with some storylines for a few more weeks. Whenever I see a church, to this day I still think of her story of how she used to steal money from the collection plate. So, she did manage to leave a lasting impact on me.

Jake: He seemed like he would be so much more fun than he was when he first appeared on launch night. But he was just kind of there for most of the show. He was kinda cute (looked at his insta and he’s cuter now) and had the love triangle thing going on with Lisa and Skye. His rapping was cringe though. I remember him being roommates with Tim Dormer, so did he even get on the show naturally?

Lisa: She was a bit like Katie. Was shown to be a very standoffish mean girl who was dismissive of the younger housemates. Also, like Katie, she was shown to be condescending towards Skye numerous times throughout the show. Not much else to her outside of the arguments with the men. Again, like Katie she had the potential to be involved with storylines for a little bit longer, but she was a very negative presence on the show.

Sam: He wasn’t as quiet and under-edited as I recall. It was said that he (like many others) was very crass in the house and spoke a lot about stuff that wasn’t suitable to air on television. This says a lot about how a watered-down version of Big Brother doesn’t work at all. The fake shark attack story does make me laugh, I remember watching it and thinking this guy has a pretty advanced sense of humour. This time I saw a bit of an aggressive side to him as well that I didn’t pick up on the first time. His relationship with Sandra had some intrigue, but more from her end than his.

Sandra: I used to think she was painful to watch. This time she was fine. Bearable I suppose. I do wonder what has happened to make her that self-conscious of her appearance? She was a very attractive woman with a figure many others would kill for. It does make me really sad that she lacked so much self-confidence. But that also didn’t make for great viewing. She was rather sulky and negative which did disappoint me as at the launch she presented herself to be really fun. There was some interest I had in her crush on Sam, but it was a bit of an awkward situation. She was so self-conscious and very attached to him even though he had a girlfriend.

Jason: I liked him. He had a lot of fun moments despite not being shown a lot in the edit and I was sad to see him go early. His only major part in the storyline was being a floater in-between groups and seeking information from everyone. His story about coming out was a sad one as well that was one of the few real human moments in the season. I was a bit disappointed he left so early, he may not have if the voting lines between him Priya and David reopened. But in fairness, he wasn’t a huge character in comparison to others. He was more so sprinkled across the episodes rather than being the main focus.

Marina: She was there. That’s quite literally it. She was apparently flirty? Flirted with Travis? Had a friendship with Skye? She was hardly shown at all. There are intruders who were in the house for three days that I know more about than Marina. Quite possibly the most forgettable housemate in BBAU history.
 
Lawson: I remember him being an early favourite to win the show on Sportsbet which I never understood personally. He was generically relatable but not unique enough to stick out to me. I don’t care for magic either, so I didn’t find much about him to be very entertaining. It is extremely sad what happened to his mother, but we didn’t get to learn about it all. I do wonder if the loss of his mother played a part in his attraction to Cat. Did he like the idea of having affection from a mature motherly figure? Was he really attracted to Cat, or did she fill in an empty space that he longed to fill? It is very uncomfortable watching him actively cheat on his partner and be a lot more open about it than Tully was. I suppose in a way they were separated briefly before the show, so they were probably a relationship on the rocks, but it doesn’t make the situation any better. I don’t think he is a horrible person; I think losing a parent so young must have really shaken him up and Cat would have really played with his emotions. I didn’t particularly enjoy watching him hang out with the older, boring and judgemental group with Sam, Sandra and Ryan. On his own, he wasn’t very interesting either, so other than the Clawson storyline I wasn’t too invested in whether he stayed or not.

Aisha: I remember her being one of my favourites from the series very early on up until her eviction. And she still was. I just remember her being a bigger character than what I ended up seeing her be. She was cute and very likeable and had an interesting story, but like a lot of others, the lack of airtime given to these housemates made it hard to truly understand her. Outside of her relationships with Travis and Skye (and Lawson a bit), there wasn’t anything else shown of her. I remember her argument with Lawson very well and have always attributed that to her eviction. But now, I don’t get why she slipped in popularity. Maybe the voters grew fatigued from voting for the two of them. Then again, looking at the other housemates, she probably just had less of a following than people like Skye, Priya, Ryan and David. She definitely got more votes than Cat, so I don’t know why they evicted her first. I think she became more of a victim of circumstance rather than the voting public turning on her. She was one of the more likeable figures on the cast despite being a quieter one in my opinion.

Cat: Here is the thing with Cat, in the beginning, both times I have watched this season now I really liked her. She was a normal everyday person who was very relatable and easy to root for. She was level-headed, easy-going and just decently likeable. I was super happy to see her voted the most saved the first time she faced eviction as an individual. I was happy to see that the voting audience wanted to reward an everyday person. I liked that she wanted to hang out with the younger crowd, and I felt she was one of the more complex personalities amongst the cast. Then she had to go crazy for a man eight years her junior who had a girlfriend on the outside and her popularity plummeted within a week. She was amongst the most popular housemates to then being almost evicted after Lisa. It is really sad that she unknowingly blew up her own potential in the game, but like Lawson, I can kind of see how this happened. Being a 31-year-old divorcee, she probably wanted some sense of stability, wanted to feel young and Lawson provided all of that. She more than likely saw in him what she longed for after recently losing it, just like Lawson. Had the series used vote to evict she would have been out the door A LOT earlier with a very large percentage of votes, I think. She like Tully had a fan base voting for her but it could only take her so far. And unlike Drew, she and Lawson didn’t have anything to combat the decrease in popularity. So, whilst I did personally like her, I can see why the public quickly turned on her. It does make me wonder why she was so okay flirting with Lawson in a temptress sort of way, especially when she took him to the Sanctuary and was happy to sleep in the bed with him. A lot of head-scratching and questionable decisions from her end. But who am I to really judge when I wasn’t the one in either of their situations?

Tom: He was there for how long? 16 days? Felt like no time at all. He got along with the boys and had a disagreement with Skye. Came across as judgmental and nominated Lina for being 25 and liking Spongebob. Well, I’m 22 and like Spongebob so shut up Tom. Who even are you?

Richard: I actually thought he was really cute in some sort of weird way. He got more airtime than Tom but not enough to have a long stay in the house. I liked that he got along with the people I liked, and I feel like maybe in a previous series or if he came in earlier, he could have been a fun housemate.
 
Leo: I didn't really like him to be honest, like I have said before I don't like his archetype and he didn't do anything to change that opinion. I don't find him attractive, nor did I find him interesting, and I just found him to be quite boring and actually rather unlikeable. his relationship with Skye was 100% based on the fact that she was popular, and he wanted to maintain popularity with the voting public. the only reason he lasted so long in the series is because of either him being nominated against many other people or intruders. I don't think he was that popular with the voting audience at all, he was rather irrelevant to a lot of the storylines despite how long he lasted. I think after losing a lot of weight he became a bit too cocky and a bit too proud of himself to the point of him developing a God complex. I spent a lot of my time watching this series waiting for his eviction episode because of how much I really didn't like watching him.

David: When I first watched this series, I didn't really like him. This time around I actually came to appreciate him and was less offended by his character. I never used to understand why he had such a large number of fans rallying for him but now I get it. Yes, he did tend to say some inappropriate things at times (especially towards Sandra) but I think a lot of that was due to the possibility of him not having a lot of female friends. I think he also struggled with the age difference in the house given that he was one of the older housemates which made it hard for him to get along with a lot of the younger housemates. I did feel sorry for him in the beginning when he was kind of singled out and was repeatedly nominated with a large number of nomination points each week, so I can see why people were rooting for him as he was kind of an underdog. I think his honesty got him into trouble too much for him to be able to win, but he was still a very interesting character in the series as a whole and was one of the more memorable characters from the show. His bickering with Sandra as a dysfunctional couple as well his rivalry with Priya was interesting viewing but towards the end, he did become a bit bland when he was started to become close with Ryan and Tom. he was robbed of a fifth-place finish due to the family and friends nominating rather than the housemates, which does suck but I am at least glad that he lasted so long. I like him a lot more now re-watching the series than I initially did eight years ago.

Lina: She is given almost no storyline in the edit and was simply just a secondary character to the main protagonist such as Skye Ryan and Travis. I don't really have much of an opinion on her as I was almost showing nothing of her to develop one. I know that she was born in China and that's as much as I know about her. I'm willing to bet that her percentage to win was extremely low.

Penny: She's probably one of the better casting choices from this series and should have been there from the beginning. She wasn't shown as much as I had hoped her to be (as I skipped the daily shows at the time, so I didn't get to see a lot of her) but from what I did watch I did enjoy her. she was funny, she was entertaining, she was unique, and she stuck out even amongst the original housemates. She's a lot more memorable than more than half the cost which wasn't really hard to do but anyway she is still an amazing housemate. Had she been there from the beginning I would have been willing to root for her to win in all honesty. I just wish there was more time for me to get to know her because she was very likeable. I remember meeting her when I worked at McDonald's a couple of years ago and she was extremely nice in real life, so I gave her a free coffee LOL.
 
Priya: I have to be brutally honest I don't understand the massive hype around her on this forum. It's not that I don't like her I did really like her I just don't understand the massive hype for her. I liked that in the beginning she was presenting herself as this manipulative game player and was looking out for herself and no one else and it didn't matter who she pissed off. Her decision and reasoning for saving Gemma was something that I admire and that I have looked back on fondly ever since it aired. Earlier on she was probably one of the biggest characters if not the biggest one, but once Katie leaves prayer kind of disappears from the edit, and the voting audience seemed to pick up on it. If the lines reopened during the Jason eviction or if she was nominated against the right mix of people, I think she probably is evicted in those middle weeks of the show. I can’t pinpoint where it is that assisted in her increase in support, but it could possibly be when she wins head of house? it seems even though she was in the top four saved in the split triple week, that she was never as popular as the other frontrunners as I think the final three were always going to be the final three from day one. She and David it seems had a very similar in size fanbase. I remember reading that at David’s eviction she was close to being evicted and was leading to be the evictee several times. So, whilst people like her and David had huge support, it was never going to be enough to ultimately defeat the three beautiful people.

I did enjoy the unlikely friendship between herself and Skye, it made me want to root for the two of them towards the end. So, whilst I can't say she was my favourite I would've much rather her in the finale than probably Ryan in Travis as I would have liked to see it come down to her and Skye and then, I think that would have been a more satisfying conclusion to the season. I like that she was willing to call out inconsistencies and biases from the other housemates and I appreciated her outlook on the game itself even if I don't think her strategy was the optimal one to use. I was interested to see her on social media as I haven't followed her for a very long time and to find out that she has divorced her husband and is living a different life now. I remember her appearing on Big Boss and then she later spoke about the racism she experienced on the show. Nice to see that she has a good career going for her.

Skye: She was my favourite the first time and she still is today I absolutely love her and think she is a fantastic housemate, one of the best in the channel 9 era. I remember at first glance watching her the first time I saw her I thought she was a fake, shallow and artificial person with no substance. Both times I've watched this season I saw someone who was the complete opposite. I really appreciated her rawness and admitted her lack of self-confidence, which to me showed that there is substance behind her. It does seem based on comments from other housemates that the edit was a lot kinder to her than it could have been, as a lot of scenes depicted her being condescended and patronised by her fellow housemates (Lisa, Kate, Sandra and Ryan most of the time). She came across as very bubbly, fun-loving and passionate. It's interesting to watch and to look back on how much perception of plastic surgery has changed since her time in the Big Brother house, I remember back then she was judged a lot on social media and by people watching the show that I knew. Even in just eight short years, there is less stigma and more acceptance to have enhancements done to our appearance, I say if there's something you want done that makes you feel more confident then who am I to judge?

Like many other housemates who came before, her popularity shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, she was always going to be a fan favourite and was always going to make it far in the game. At the time of watching, I never doubted that she was going to be in the finale and now watching it back I still agree with that statement. She definitely got a lot of airtime in comparison to other people and was also one of the few characters that I actually understood their relationships within the house. She kinda falls into the category of housemate who's hard to live with but is entertaining to watch. Being the same age now as she was then, I can all too well relate to the small things I watched on TV such as being unable to cook and cleaning incorrectly. I remember being completely shocked when she came third at the finale and didn't at least come second, I understand that in the end she became a little bit cocky and was expecting to win but I didn't see anything that she did to warrant a decline in popularity in my opinion. To me, she stood out the most amongst the cost and was the most unique of them all she may not be the most physically relatable, but her personality won me over in a way that I can look past that. I do think she challenged stereotypes within the house, but she did have some complexity to her and was in no way a bad person or judgmental.

What I love the most about her when she was in the house and even now is her appreciation for being on the show and how she has always acknowledged that's where she came from. she is incredibly lucky to have made something of herself today and I think she humbly knows that she wouldn't be where she is today without Big Brother. I think when she was in the house, she genuinely felt love for the fans who supported her, and I think she still does to this day. While she did get cocky, I don't think she was disappointed in herself to not have one, I believe her when she says that her biggest accomplishment in life is coming 3rd on the show. I think she is a rarity in that no matter where she placed, she was going to be proud of herself regardless and I do believe that even if other people don't. Her absence on the 2022 season is a huge mistake in my opinion, and the alleged reasoning behind it in my opinion is overblown. I think she could have done well for the show, and I would've been interested to see her play the modern game as a new person who is now a mother with a different mindset than the first time. I do like her a lot even if the show’s edit has a lot to do with it. I personally enjoy her presence on social media still to this day and she will always be one of my favourite housemates of all time.
 
Travis: I used to love him back in the day but this time I actually understood why everyone thought he was a tool. He was one of those douche footy guys who always had to have his voice heard and couldn't articulate an argument well enough despite the fact that he thought he could. He was loud and obnoxious, and I struggled to warm to him in the early days of the show. I don't know what it is, and I can't understand why but there was a point where I stopped disliking him and did warm to him, and it was around the same time as the fake eviction. beforehand he was getting a moderate number of votes to save, not enough to be a fan favourite but enough to survive eviction. maybe he was just a character that people took a while to actually like? I can't pinpoint it, I struggle to think of why he became popular with the audience in the middle of the season, but He definitely gained popularity at some point and became a front-runner to potentially win. I never doubted him, just like Skye and Ryan, in his ability to make it to the final three. I found the ending to be completely predictable and I never once thought of any different outcome other than those three being there at the end. I didn't care much about the relationship with him in Aisha, it was cute at times but not really anything I found that riveting. He was obviously really hard to live with hence why he was nominated so many times, but I suppose on the outside world he'd be really fun to hang out with (in very small doses) and he did make for good TV numerous times. I did like that he didn't just stick to the boys and form a boy’s group, he instead hung out with Skye and the other females and had fun throughout his stay in the house. But being from the same area as him and knowing very well what sort of person he would be like; I couldn't find myself wanting him to win.

Ryan: Who was he for the first five weeks of the show? He literally gets no content, no airtime and no storyline until the hotel task. If he wasn't hot, he wouldn't have won. Instead, he would have been evicted very early on in the season. The main reason he wins is because of pretty privilege. If an average looking person behaved the way he did on a reality show, they wouldn't have won the support that Ryan got. All of his support comes from his attractiveness and that's really it. The only reason he even has relationships with some of the characters towards the end is due to all of his friends getting evicted early. In the daily shows, he's always shown to be hanging out with Sam and Sandra and it isn't until they leave that we actually see him talk with other people. And to be honest, he kind of has a judgmental and condescending nature to him that I didn't particularly like. But then again, it is a very heavily edited show so what do I know and what can I really say. Despite this, I think he along with Drew, is one of the most consistent players in this format of Big Brother AU. I think more often than not, he does well. His archetype is gifted success in this type of show, and he doesn’t have to do anything to earn it. His win is very underwhelming for an underwhelming season. I was happy with the outcome at the time, I had always thought of the final three as the final three and they were all my favourites. Whilst I still think of the outcome to be heavily foreshown, I find his win very dull. But that isn’t anything I’m not used to feeling when watching the end result of a reality TV show.
 
You are an absolute machine Zcsund to power through all the series so quickly damn. I'm glad someone else came around on David, whilst I think he did say some things that were a bit sexist I think overall he was pretty entertaining and I appreciated that he was someone who was there for the experience and wasn't looking for a media/influencer career afterwards. He went straight back to working at the hospital immediately and is still a Radiographer now I believe.

I still find it hilarious that Dion got nominated for talking about cross fit too much lol. He got so little airtime that it was hard to really see what his character was even like in some ways.

Jake was dead man walking the minute people found out he was roommates with Tim. He seemed really calculated to me and not genuine at all.
 
Someone has to stand up for the pretty boys and whilst it's true Ryan was invisible for much of the season from what I recall he had a really dry sense of humour and a good read of the house which perhaps were both factors in him winning out over Travis, who really probably should have lapped up the pretty boy vote given he got so much more airtime. Think in this case pretty and smart outplayed pretty and dumb.

And was he invisible for the first few weeks because the producers edited him out or was he actually smart enough to make himself invisible to avoid the threat of eviction in the early weeks. I assume he wasn't nominated.


One question for you though Zcsund - did you find both housemates and perhaps moments too more memorable from the earlier seasons. I certainly find it easier to name all the housemates from the early seasons of BBUK than the later ones (on C4 at least, I don't count C5!) And with BB Aus I certainly have far more memories of probably BB3-BB7 than anything that has followed.
 
Tom: He was there for how long? 16 days? Felt like no time at all. He got along with the boys and had a disagreement with Skye. Came across as judgmental and nominated Lina for being 25 and liking Spongebob. Well, I’m 22 and like Spongebob so shut up Tom. Who even are you?
Tom is just that guy...
 
Ryan: Who was he for the first five weeks of the show? He literally gets no content, no airtime and no storyline until the hotel task. If he wasn't hot, he wouldn't have won. Instead, he would have been evicted very early on in the season. The main reason he wins is because of pretty privilege. If an average looking person behaved the way he did on a reality show, they wouldn't have won the support that Ryan got. All of his support comes from his attractiveness and that's really it.
Wait, people thought Ryan was hot? His win was inexplicable to me.
 
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