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BBAU 2025: Casting open, return to Dreamworld Confirmed

While I am excited about the return of BB to its original format, I also have some reservations.

The biggest issue is editing, things taken out of context, false narratives created for "entertainment" purposes but ended up duping viewers into voting HMs off the show for fabricated reasons. For an good example of this, we need look no further than painting Johnny as evil in season 1. The audience couldn't wait for this so-called evil man to be up for eviction (which wasn't until about half way through the season, so much did his HMs love him) to vote him out. Here's Johnny thinking the viewers can't have been ready for a gay BB winner and when he found out the truth he was traumatised. Others have faired similar fates, particularly Michael in season 6 but even little things like Jo in season 3 made to look like she was mad at someone when she walked into a room when she simply didn't have her contacts. Production would have known this but deliberately manipulated us to think otherwise. This is dishonest and corrupt. Imagine being loved in the house and when you leave you discover the world has a completely different perception of you, even a life-altering negative view that might overshadow you for years. I sometimes think it would be a good idea to have a support group for contestants who've been gas lit by Big Brother and other reality shows.

There's also the weeping issue in the first days of a season. I know some don't like weepy people and want them off the show. Of course, for dramatic purposes, Big Brother neglects to tell you that some are suffering from nicotine withdrawal, and if they were allowed to be around for more than a couple of weeks, it might stop. Katina from season 2 is a good example of this.

Another instance is Sharna from season 1. Now we know she spit the dummy when she got nominated, judged by the audience immediately and that was it for her. However, she did apologise I think the same day or Tuesday. However, her apology wasn't shown until around 6 o'clock Sunday night, about a half hour before voting closed by which time her fate had already been sealed and it was too late to change the trend of the vote if that was possible. If the apology had been shown when it as given, I don't know how much that would have changed the result, she might have gone out by less than she did but regardless, this is another example of dishonest editing.
 
I guess that's the nature of reality TV, the producers do spin the webs, but having the livestream aspect will be interesting.

There will be die-hard fans that will watch it as much as they can, so there will be a select audience that would pick up on any "villian edits". But you'd have to watch it 24/7, I'd personally go insane 😂
 
BB12 said:
There will be die-hard fans that will watch it as much as they can, so there will be a select audience that would pick up on any "villian edits". But you'd have to watch it 24/7, I'd personally go insane 😂
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It's the kind of thing you can have running in the background. There'll be dozens/hundreds/thousands watching depending on the time of day so across the audience the truth will mostly be known. I agree with Kingston, it'll be more authentic than it has been probably since 2008, and possibly even more so due to lessons learnt back in the day. I don't think they anticipated the audience's reaction to them talking up "Johnnie Rotten" but after that I understand they were instructing live audiences to be supportive of all evictees.
 
The Rusty Viewer said:
For a good example of this, we need look no further than painting Johnny as evil in season 1.
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I remember Peter Abbott spoke quite candidly about production trying to disarm this narrative, the show itself never escalated the “Johnnie Rotten” narrative, that was done by their media partners Triple M and NW Magazine at the time. Johnnie’s eviction was actually shown to be a highly emotional story arc for the series, it’s probably the only time I’ve seen Gretel on the verge of tears. His eviction highlights package was also a very positive representation of his time in the house.

Season 1 is not a great example of “production manipulation” and was incredibly vanilla in comparison to the strings being pulled towards the end of the 10 run between 2005-2008. Season 1 might be one of the best examples of just letting the series run and believing in the casting process to generate compelling content.
 
Here's another issue, one that as really puzzled me. It is about voting percentages. For the first three seasons or so we would see the voting percentages soon after the voting started. While we could see who got what, the percentages remained fixed all week, like they were set in stone and never changed. The trend was there and not enough people changed their mind for it to make any difference. But from season 4 suddenly it is close and there is only a few hundred in it and it keeps changing. I really would like a logical explanation about this.
 
James T said:
the strings being pulled towards the end of the 10 run between 2005-2008
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Was also the era of them just making shit up as they went along instead of following a pre-prepared plan.

ie:
BB2005 at launch: If the twins fail and are detected, they're one housemate and will either be evicted together or win together.
BB2005 in Week 11: One twin must be evicted.
 
I watched the 2006 season a little while ago and this brings up the issue of microphones. Does there really have to be such a drama about this? Surely with today's technology 20 years later the HMs either shouldn't need microphones anymore or there is a way to have them permanently on them and concealed such as disguised as a tooth cap.
 
Rison said:
BB2005 at launch: If the twins fail and are detected, they're one housemate and will either be evicted together or win together.
BB2005 in Week 11: One twin must be evicted
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Honestly, one of them should have been evicted the moment they got detected. Big Brother can change the rules at any time. In this case my main complaint is they waited too long. I hope we never see two HMs being treated as one again. Ari and Tay?? Fuck that shit.
 
Rison said:
I just had to Google them to even remember who they were. Completely forgettable people from a very forgettable season (that very few even watched in its entirety).
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Oh, I only remembered their names because they got a mention somewhere. Ask me a week ago and I wouldn't have recalled their names at all.
 
TAR is airing Monday September 8th, presumably airing twice a week for 6 weeks. If it is to conclude with its 12th episode the week of October 13th then there is still a 2 week gap between TAR finishing and the begining of November. Maybe, maybe there is still hope for an 8 week run? Probably not, but I like to have some level of deluded hope still.
 
The Rusty Viewer said:
I watched the 2006 season a little while ago and this brings up the issue of microphones. Does there really have to be such a drama about this? Surely with today's technology 20 years later the HMs either shouldn't need microphones anymore or there is a way to have them permanently on them and concealed such as disguised as a tooth cap.
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They pretty much haven't changed - still wired, still with a battery pack. Shows like Love Island disguise them as necklaces but basically use the Big Brother set up.
 
timmy said:
Someone posted that ad ages ago, and we've already speculated about season length based on it.
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I remember some job ads being posted that said early nov-early dec mainly for editors iirc but I hadn’t seen the set designer job ad
 
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