Ok so I’m liking the kinda wrap around feel of the outside the house set with the tiered seating, looks cool. Eye opening out to the stage for Brian Dowling, now host and the housemates walking through, theres a rotating section of the staircase just before the door leading into the house, and interior wise theres a staircase leading down into the main area which from memory Iirc caught a glimpse of some of the Channel 5 houses before a long time ago and I think that staircase becomes a central constant in a few of the designs from here on in but we shall see.
I havent watched the second episode yet but there was a very quick few flips through the rest of the house shown also in the opening titles (again you can see some of the influence Channel 9 later may have taken much inspiration from for our 2012 reboot especially the Eye logo design), but the Diary room is shown to be behind a long airlock corridor beghind the staircase and has a kindoff cubey kinda diary room chair this time. Theres also a sauna.
What I’m wondering is as BB12 apparently started literally the day after CBB8 wrapped, how much of this is essentially seeing the BB12 house for the first time as well and if all this carries over unless they somehow might have a section or room secretly bordered off like maybe those few sections of BB8’s house that opened up later on. We’ll see.
Marcus is kinda helping Brian doing the narration for some of the housemate facts as they make their way into the house. Kerry Katona (one of the original Atomic Kitten members) is first up. Tara Reid is an interesting American get, She seems like she could be a bit more quiet and reserved at first like maybe LaToya Jackson, but it’ll be interesting to see, bit of a funny moment she couldnt seem to stop going on about how ‘the front door didn’t open straightaway’, when it did, she was just turned back around to wave at the crowd.
Paddy is one Im not familiar with so he’ll be interesting. Darryn Lyons the mr Paparrazzi man comes in with a loud outfit, and I think Sally Bercow could be fun to watch.
Got a few younger ones in there, Amy Childs from Essex show, Lucien Laviscount (what a name) is only 19 (thanks OKTV for putting some info up) and giving me a little bit Kenzie vibes, and the 25 year old Model guy Bobby Sabel.
Pamela from Baywatch (no not that Pamela, David Hasselhoff’s ex wife Pam Bach-Hasselhoff) was very kooky, Brian had a tough time keeping her from twirling him around to get the entry interview lol. Lastly there was Jedward, they’re gonna be a handful, or are we gonna see another side to them perhaps?
First secret task has Kerry first to the diary room, she must make a big Diva level strop within like 30 minutes and await further instructions.
BOTS: Ok, I think I see the bridging between it and what we currently have as Late and Live now. Hosted by (pregnant again) Emma Willis (with some co-regulars perhaps? Jamie East and Alice Levine) Theres a bit of a Big Mouth esque audience, with a Couch off to the side and also a panel desk with some guests (First Episode had Brian in the audience, Lauren Harries on the coiuch and also a fashion VT, and Alex Reid, Josie Gibson and Jamie on the panel.
OkTV:Bruv Takes Over is from the same set, hosted by Jenny Frost (who replaced Kerry in Atomic Kitten) and Jeff Brazier. They spoke to Brian, and later Jamie and Alice, but in-between there was also a segment on X Factor UK starting. Bit of a slightly different format/vine in parts, but I think its also easier Im comfortable skimming/1.5x buffering through it for now to get a general gist unless I find a particular segment or guest interesting I think. Also getting used to Davina and George having moved on, but we at least still have Emma (and Brian) for some bridging Haha.
There was also a bit of a BTS VT with Jedward at one of their tours before they went in. So next episode is another Live special where I think we’ll get an update on whatever next part of Kerry’s task is going.
So you've finally reached what was the true end of Big Brother. Going from the effort they put into BB11 to Kerry Katona just sums up everything wrong about BB on C5.
Ok so the bedroom is in a similar position, you can tell the walk in closet area from BB11 is in the same spot, as is the shell of the BB11 Kitchen which has now become the bathroom with a couch and a big bathtub in the centre. I haven’t quite worked out where the gym room is but during a Jedward VT on BOTS they opened the door which makes it look like it’s somewhere off to the side of the main area (perhaps near the bedroom door)?
So night one Kerry begins her Diva strop task by throwing herself on the floor and telling Jedward it’s in her contract that they are not allowed to touch her.
BB ups the ante next part of the task is to say ‘don’t you know who I am’ to 3 housemates and also try and swap beds then swap back at lights out. However Kerry only manages to ask Darryn if all the beds are taken.
Next day the housemates vote but they pretty much unanimously vote Jedward as the most diva. Later Kerry is shown to them being punished in the diary room, up for eviction and having to pick 2 other nominees. She chooses Bobby and Sally. It’s now vote to SAVE.
Darryn gets thrown a birthday party - during which Jedward paint their chins with chocolate then wash it off thinking they might get an acne breakout.
Special guest Mohammed Al Fayed enters the house for an Egyptian themed task to find a replacement for him as pharaoh. First round was the housemates all wrapped up as mummies and having to try and stand up. The following round was musical chairs. Al Fayed seems like he may have slightly rig it though helping Sally and Tara stand up, taking a shine to Tara who was the Victor, and giving the girls his business card at the end.
They get another party, where Lucien is being a bit weird with Amy after being teased by Darryn & Paddy earlier if he would chase after any girls in the house. Tara also gets paranoid about Darryn and tries to get Bobby and Lucien on her ‘team’ against him. I’m not sure what extra privileges Tara got for winning the task but the pharaoh outfit. I do wonder if they maybe had a backup twist if Kerry was named biggest Diva, or some kindof save and replace maybe. Hmm.
Sally gets a mini task to organise the housemates for a bedsheet fashion show.
Jedward for a day wash and flatten their hair. Bobby and Lucien prank everyone one morning by putting chickpeas in drawers and corn flakes box etc. the others think it’s Jedward being funny.
The mess situation is starting to annoy them though, particularly Darryn with Jedward and Sally tries to raise it with Pamela who thinks it’s fine just leaving it to the individual and it’ll eventually get done because she’s ’worked with teens and gang members’ before.
A little later Jedward are being obnoxious, making some cucumber mush face masks, also leaving coleslaw that fell out of her fridge on the floor, and giving Amy a wedgie trying to hurry her up to come and watch their fake talk show with Tara in the lounge, which momentarily offends Darryn and Paddy. They Apologise to Amy later after she talks to them.
Darryn gets a secret paparazzi task with a small spy cam given to him by BB to snap the other housemates covertly to match several captions. He passes and wins the house - another party! This time it’s paparazzi themed.
Bobby after several days going under the radar a bit suddenly pipes up after he perceives Darryn and Amy talking about Pamela posing by the pool for photos as taking the piss out of her and starts speaking up about it to the others to air his annoyances and get it off his chest without causing an argument.
It’s starting to get to Bobby a little bit though as the next day he first comes to the Diary room to have a good bitch session about how he finds Darryn two faced and his sculpted liposuction or whatever 8 pack and image a bit fake, then later as Kerry is telling another story about herself, how she finds it hard to date on the quiet without either the media finding out or someone blabbing, Bobby walks away seemingly a little exhausted by the conversation to have another bitch in the diary room, but ends up fourth walling to the cameras whilst waiting outside it, then goes for a walk around the bedroom.
The others are a bit weirded out by Pamela deciding to cook some meat in salad dressing. Jed ward are given a task to put on the shock suits and stay no closer than 5 feet apart for an hour, lest they get zapped. This is to allow the other HMs to get to know them as individuals. This is for a task later on, which is just to tel them apart looking at them sitting in the diary room on the plasma screen. Not a quiz or anything, just to pick them apart.
This wins them… another party! This time it’s a ‘pop party’ after which John and Amy stage a fake wedding ceremony for the lulz. Lol.
The shopping task rolls around, and it’s themed around the Wizard of Oz. The three nominees are all Dorothy, and must stay at least one of them on the yellow brick road in the garden at all times. They also pick the roles for the rest.
Darryn gets a bit taken aback by Sally remarking he didn’t have a heart when choosing him as the Tin man - she explains it as just basing it on him not following up with her when she got nominated.
Bobby causes a bit of controversy on the outside as he decides to prank Darryn by going to the sauna, collecting his sweat in cotton balls and decants a bit into the watering oil can they use for Darryn to drink when the creaking noise plays and he must stay in place.
Later Darryn passes all of his task by refusing a plate of food, a glass of wine and 30 mins with his pet Macaw (which he’s a bit misty eyed about afterwards) in exchange for a Chinese takeout for the rest of the house, fizzy pop for Lucien so he doesn’t have to keep drinking the witches brew instead of water as part of his role as witch, and a phone call from Tara’s husband to prove he has a heart. Bobby feels bad for Darryn and comes clean about ‘sweatgate’ and apologised to him, and Sally says she saw a different side to him in the diary room.
Amy’s task as the scarecrow was to prove she has a brain by passing a quiz which has bird related answers, all he while a person in a pigeon suit tarred and feathered her and distracted her. She passed that.
Pamela had to test her courage as the Lion in the small task room by allowing this magician guy to play a spike in the cups shuffled trick where she had to pick a cup and allow him to slam her hand on it. She passes that.
Tara, Jedward are munchkins and Paddy is Toto. When the witches cackle sounds they have to run into a hiding position and Toto howls. They didn’t make it on time one night session and fail that part. It’s also revealed Kerry stepped off the YBR near the start of the task so they failed that but passed the overall task 4/6.
More Jedward shenanigans, including a shaving cream playfight with Bobby, splashing water out of the bathtub, attempting to throw a bread bag water bomb at Darryn, and making ‘Modern Art’ by stacking chairs in the lounge area.
There’s some bickering between Darryn and Pamela as Darryn tries to take charge of the shopping list.
Sally is evicted (apparently Brian’s catchphrase replacing ‘please do not swear’ is going to be ‘hello housemates, your time has come’ or something) and apparently it was close between her and Bobby , I guess with such a long week long voting period (that has to be up there in the records thus far right) and his late surge making some waves after a quiet first couple days may have paid off. The eviction interview studio is just behind that eye door on the stage as well which is interesting.
Later after Pamela has a phone call to her daughter for her bday in the diary room, she has some further bickering with Lucien and then Darryn about Sally’s departure, and Tara and Kerry discuss it. Amy also had a secret booze task to drop 5 Shakespearean quotes into conversation.
Now I’ve had a week of content getting the swing of BOTS/OKTV, I’m fairly satisfied can be fairly skimmable/1.5x speed bits from here just to get a general audience perspectives gist and background and not skip over anything too major, maybe pick up some exclusive extra scenes or whatnot and stuff like that as we go.
There’s sometimes a fair bit of rehash or fluff (Nikki Graham playing BB Psych, the squirting dog Gag or what’s trending on Twitter, Jamie has an occasional ‘bedtime story’ outro gag, etc) and only the occasional VT/game or interesting guest etc, compared to BBLB/Big Mouth (more of a kind of mix of some elements from both) and it’s more like Late & Live as I mentioned before.
Although they’re still making use of a few ex housemates or familiar faces so far. So that will help in the interests of getting through the remainder of my watch through a bit easier.
For instance I can see on BOTS they are also using that recurring main celebrity guest for the week or whatever it is that they have on Late & Live now, first few days it was Alex Reid, then switched to Pete Burns in gradually more out there and extravagant outfits as the week went on, haha.
In OKTV’s case, it varies how much of the episode is relevant, for example there was one episode early they chatted to Vanessa Feltz for about 6 minutes, then moved onto Joe McElderry mainly promoting his new album, before a few other celeb gossip stories then Joe joined Jenny and Jeff in the camera run at end as their boom mic holder. Whereas another episode had about a 17 of the 28 minute show chat with Emma, Keith Lemon and Josie presenting a short piece on how to tell Jedward apart.
Anyways some other guests on BOTS this week included: Chantelle Houghton (Alex and her are now together), BB9’s Mario & Lisa doing Chers tramps and thieves song as an outro, John McCririck, Sundays episode was a quiz hosted by Alice between Alex and Josie vs Jamie and Jodie Marsh, with Ben from BB11 as the points scorer. BB8’s Carole popped in one round as a distraction to a watch this scene question.
I think that looked like Saskia (BB6) popping up as a bar woman during Emma’s chat with Harry Derbridge from the only way is Essex show, and BB10 Marcus popped in to analyse some housemate self portraits. Terry Christian, BB5/UBB Victor and Michelle were also on. In a VT Jamie took Lauren Harries to a vajazzler then goes to a pub to see if any of the guys want a ‘cockadoodle’ lol.
On OKTV, they chatted to David Hasselhoff and his daughters who are a pop duo ‘Bella Vida’ and sang ‘Kiss Me Bang Bang’ as an outro on an episode. Brian was of course back on discussing the Eviction and stuff.
The shopping task rolls around, and it’s themed around the Wizard of Oz. The three nominees are all Dorothy, and must stay at least one of them on the yellow brick road in the garden at all times. They also pick the roles for the rest.
Darryn gets a bit taken aback by Sally remarking he didn’t have a heart when choosing him as the Tin man - she explains it as just basing it on him not following up with her when she got nominated.
