BBUK: Celebrity Hijack Week 2 (up to Day 18 BBLB) Update :
This week’s Celeb Hijackers, starting with Andy McNab: Ok so the brief scenes from the teaser were explained, how it wasnt completely random but they were informed of what the task was gonna be about beforehand. Andy’s two SAS guys stormed the house early in the morning and extracted Amy and Anthony, driving them around blindfolded then unbeknownst to them back to separate Interrogation rooms in the house. They were trying to get them to give up a 4 digit code. Anthony folded first but Amy did really well just stone faced as they tried to play it psychologically to her that the real task was back at the house the others needed the code or something.
Amy won 5 grand and Immunity from noms, She chose Anthony to also be immune, who then had to put someone up. He chose Victor due to surviving the first eviction, got. a bit emotional about it. They also had an SAS guy on BBLB to analyse it and it was interesting that Amy may have done better as she’s more used to dealing with chaos as a conceptual artist, than Anthony who has a strong sense of team and family and such being thrown into that environment perhaps.
Chris Moyles: Woke them up via their radio show talking about the snow outside (He dropped a heap of show in the backyard, later making Jeremy do a snow angel) There was a Pub Quiz between the housemates (Emilia dressed up as the barmaid hostess) and Chris team which included his producer Allard and Jon Culshaw doing the voices for Ozzy Osbourne, Terry Wogan and Mark Owen). John won a beer and chat with Chris coming into the house through a hidden room at the top of a spiral staircase behind the bedroom toilet wall. He also won 3 minutes of phone time to call family, which he gave a minute of to Anthony.
Brian Sewell: an art critic in his 70’s who at first got them a little offside by telling them his initial impressions of them wasn’t very glowing, also giving Amy a bit of a blunt take that he didn't really understand/get the appeal of conceptual art, although his impressions of them appreciated a little over the day as he spoke to Liam (and embarrassingly applauded his determination to finish despite being interrupted by the wakeup alarm in the midst pof some self attention);
and putting Victor and Emilia in charge of arranging a three course meal dinner where the guests dressed up as opposite gender and had to display some manners. He also thought Spinach was a ‘deceitful vegetable’ which prompted Big Mouth to display some facts about during their 3 things at once Mouthpiece segments this season (they’ll play some whilst simultaneously having facts across the screen ticker and doing other things in studio visually such as holding a beauty pageant, doing tequila shots, taking prompt cards with messages from the audience etc).
Joan Rivers: Was pretty funny. She was in charge of listening to the housemates in pairs tell her who should be nominated, as this week it ultimately rested with her to pick some to go up against Victor (for unbeknownst to them a Double Eviction) she chooses Liam (for ‘taking his career into his own hands’ LOL) Jeremy, and Emilia (Although she gave her a pep talk about the way Victor’s being to her lately).
Keith Lemon, Martin & Bo Selecta ‘Crayg Dayyyvid”: Keith set them in groups a ‘design a product and give a ‘Lions (Dragons) Den’ style pitch about it task to them. Speaks to Liam about ‘the opposites of things’ like Pants and Hat. Anthony’s team wins that with some briefcase thing about pooping on the go or something. Keith also plays random sound effects and the instrumental of that ‘Clothes Off!’ song. After that he sends ’12 year old’ Martin into the house where he quickly weirds out the housemates with awkwardness and a stink bomb during a ‘kisschase’ game until Keith removes him and takes him back.
Later the Craig David Caricature takes over, getting them all in matching get ups and the caricature masks to sing ’Soda Pop’ (which was as I looked up, part of a 2004 double a side parody Christmas single with Avid Merrion doing ‘I Got You Babe along with Davina! it reached #5 int he UK apparently). On BBLB Keith kept trying to give Dermot his extra Fish lunch package. I do recall reading about how some of Leigh's bits went through similar criticisms to Chris Lilley's in recent years around the parts that come across as blackface aspects that haven't particularly aged well to present day.
Denise Van Outen: having apparently just come off west end, she set them a musical task that finally - someone actually used the Target on the floor at least somewhat. Whenever she played ‘All That Jazz’ from Chicago into the house, 3 of them had to come to the target and do a chorus line. She also set mini tasks for Anthony (whom she took a shine to) & John to dance everywhere they walked (john’s really getting into the dancing lately - he got into Craig David’s 7 Days impromptu the other episode); and Callista & Jay had to sing everytime they talked.
A Special between the eviction announcement and interviews on the Friday night was the housemates following along live (there was a simulcast stream also available) to Gordon Ramsay’s Cookalong special (which included Chris Moyles and Janet Street Porter) Apparently as I read this was extended to a few episode run later in 2008.
Scott Mills: Set the house a ‘life drawing’ task where Anthony came out in a pair of LaToya’s pants. The real secret task was though to annoy Jay as much as possible during it, but then they also got some loud props after. Jeremy was deemed the most annoying and got to share Chinese meal with Jay in the Diary Room.
BBLB: this week had Jade doing a few things, from interview with Dermot amongst some teddies dressed as the housemates, doing some Bollywood dancing and winning a beauty pageant on air, out and about making people ‘happy’. She also appeared on Big Mouth where the intro was James and Matt apologising for the voiceover eviction countdown (also appears to have played into their own Hijack session coming up).
Also on was the usual Dermot teleporting for chats with the hijackers, Few F & F on from Antony’s Mum and Sisters/Coach, Nathan’s Mum who is also a performer/was a radio DJ? or something, Amy’s F & F, and Dermot dressing up as Joan Rivers, Brian Sewell, Peaches Geldof and Andy McNab for the Nominees F & F pleas this week. Other Guests included Nikki Grahame (BB7) and they had Liam from BB8 on Big Mouth too.
As to the other action this week in the house, this week we saw Nathan admitting to Chris Moyles that he had a crush on Amy, and not LaToya, later admitting it in the bedroom but Victor then says jokingly that he’s too good for LaToya, which Latoya gets a bit taken aback by. Amy is also a bit weirded out by Nathan coming out with that too especially as she has a BF.
Theres something brewing between Anthony and Callista as well, although theres an element of like Amy and Nathan about having somebody or feelings for someone on the outside making their friends or more situation-ship or whatever super complicated.
Anthony shaves a cross into his head and leaves it like that for a day, initially pranking Emilia and some of the others in cahoots with John and the boys that they did it to him. He completely shaves it the following day.
Furthermore Jeremy, Callista, Latoya and Jay plot to stage an argument between LaToya and Jay throwing water on each other. It goes on a bit though even after Jeremy and Callista tell Victor its a joke, Victor then gets offended perceiving LaToya telling him to f*k off, I think he may have overreacted just a tad though because then he seemed to make it out like it was a personal attack and making it about himself how their ‘Improv was making him look stupid’ and runs off getting angry and emotional in the bathroom with Emilia after him.
It’s Liam and Victor evicted, Emilia though in the aftermath doesn’t appear to be flourishing without him as some were predicting, instead seeming to be a little lost without him. It must be a bit of a conflicted relationship though (and I may go into more thoughts on this in the end of season wrap up), but based on the really intense act they perform, She really needs that high degree of being that in sync with her brother iykwim, as she’s literally placing herself in his hands during those routines. However you could also say that that doesn’t excuse the moments of what reads like perhaps a bit of mask off chauvinism leaking through however which is concerning (calling her a wh0re in another language in plain sight of the others earlier in the week for example) that seems a bit beyond the typical Brother Sister joking, or whether is cultural, or whatever Victor keeps bringing up that he had going on outside the house as well as blaming it on the environment of the house and being 19, etc making him a nervous person or whatever. It’s an interesting one, moreover Emilia is still quick to defend him even after he’s left.
Anyways its also not quite seemed to have quite the expected effect on her relationship with Jeremy having the chance to grow further without Victor stifling her. Theres a bit of a disagreement in a conversation where Emilia says Nathan came on the show for his career, but he will do well with the girls after he gets out too, and Jeremy takes it as her insinuating that he only came on for the notoriety and getting girls over the exposure for his career or something.
Dermot shows Liam a line of Cushions waiting outside and gives Victor a hamper of cleaning tools in the interview.
That’ll do for Week 2, I’m Onto the next few episodes!
BBUK: Celebrity Hijack Week 3 (up to Day 25 BBLB) Update :
Starting from Saturday, the Hijackers this week started with the McQueen Sisters trio from Hollyoaks. Their Hijack was based around picking eith Anthony, Nathan or Jeremy for a date with them in the room behind the storeroom. Thought it was perhaps a little bit exclusive of them not to have John be in the running (Jay not interested for obvious reasons, although I think Dermot might’ve been getting confused with Liam for a moment when referring to him as a ‘bisexual fashion designer’ to Iain Lee on BBLB this week - which Is certainly not outside the realm of possibility but nope, Jay himself reasserted himself as gay in his stand up comedy routine).
This was pointed out by Nicole Appleton from All Saints later in the week during her and Mel Blatt’s Hijack, that maybe they could’ve played that a bit more inclusively, although OTH Jon and LaToya still got a prize as Anthony’s dating coaches off sorts and Ultimately it seemed the whole thing was a set up for Anthony to win anyway (what the heck was that they dressed Jeremy in compared to Anthony and Nathan’s sharp suits for example).
James Corden & Matt Horne spent their entire Hijack pretty much in person with the housemates, revolving around making it up to them about the Eviction countdown voiceover. They woke them up by making them breakfast set to Tracy Chapman’s ‘Baby Can I Hold You’, giving them some gifts (Emilia got a framed picture of Victor). They spent the day with them individually chilling out in the other room, singing Sisqo’s thong song with Nathan and showing Jay the ‘Fierce (x3) now you’re vulnerable’ remix they made up that could rival Calista’s ‘I Love To Play My Bongo’s In the mooorning (x20)’ song. Later the housemates ‘pass’ the task by all joining in the outside group hug (although Amy is initially hesitant thinking it could be some sort of prank.
Mackenzie Crook: Based his hijack around ’Geeks’ Day kindof like a similar task from BB7. He had them dress up and do a different activity, LaToya, Emilia and Jay were bird watching ’twitchers’ looking for pictures dangling outside, Anthony and Callista making models, John Nathan and Amy doing Medieval re-enactments, and Jeremy dressed up as from Star Trek, did a Rubber band ball. He was deemed the winner of the task.
Nicole Appleton & Melanie Blatt (All Saints): First had a’Who Want’s To Be A Millionaire’ esque task in the other room with a chair and spotlight asking the housemates about their talent and also special interest topics. Jay bombed a bit of some Maya Angelou questions. Later they came into the house only letting the girls and Jay out of bedroom to join them but then eventually all the boys too. Mel lets slip John, Anthony and Amy might be favourites to win and gets a bit warned by BB. They have a bit of a chill out with the housemates before leaving.
Roseanne Barr: Set the housemates a stand up comedy routine task. Jeremy was the MC, the others had to do in pairs with one presenting. Anthony got a bit harsh on Calista’s appearance in his jokes, but apologises to her after Amy made one about a chair using Anthony and John as props.
Jimmy Carr (with Lauren Pope in house as an assistant): wakes them up with a prerecorded alarm of Marcus Bentley’s voiceover. This leads into a mini task wearing a Flava Flav clock around the neck an announcing themselves in Marcus accent everytime they spoke for an hour. Amy won that task and won some mugs for the house and a pocket watch. Later the housemates came to the diary room to pick an animal outfit and do some rankings of the others in terms of Looks, Intelligence and talent for a game of ‘Mates rates’ afterwards with Lauren Pope coming in to fliup the cards over with the overall scores they had to guess higher or lower than the previous. At the end of that Jimmy lined them up outside in order of height and asked them to guess the category, but pranking them by dipping out for the day before the 5 minutes. They speculated it could be honesty or betting odds for the winner.
Malcolm McLaren: Started out by removing the furniture from the lounge area and having tthe housemates unravel big cardboard rolls set up to create like a labyrinthine maze. Then he came into the houuse to assist them. Amy and John werent comfortable stripping down to underswear for the body painting task once the cardboard was laid out, but they stiull were given a bicycle to get involved by painting its tires and riding around over the canvas. The art is later hung up around the walls. Later Malcolm hosts a wine tasting with them with a whole lot of sexual double entendres lol, bit eccentric. This is broadcast in B&W.
BBLB: The Sunday episode had both Liam & Victor on, Liam sung Boyzone’s ‘No Matter What’ from a rolling bathtub (as he did in the house, whilst Victor was doing handstands. They also sent Brian (BB8) off to do some conceptual art (last week he did some roller skating, next up is apparently going to be some politics ala John). Liam & Victor helped Brian and Nikki (BB7) choose out of 3 potential viewer hijackers in the competition they’ve been running. Jonathan, with the idea of making each housemate a ‘Celebrity something’ outside their area of talent won.
Other BBLB guests included Iain Lee, whom again pretty upfront about having watched little of the season before coming on, Lauren Laverne and Emma Griffiths were back, and the F & F pleas segment this week was in the style of All Saints millionaire quiz style task with the lights down, Dermot dressed as the host and the F & F wheeled in and out by crew. The segment they had Jay & Calista’s F & F on was funny too, Calista’s dad was entertaining whilst Jay’s friend tried a bit of a hijack of her own on the BBLB Shout segment at the end of the show by jumping in to promote one of Jay’s designs she was wearing.
Big Mouth had a couple more musical intros (did James and Matt know All Saints were coming up as hijackers before?) including a verse from Kanye West’s Stronger, Here Comes The Hot-stepper, and Snow’s Informer. There was also a Meerkat Manor inspired opening with Trevor and Simon. There was a Statue in. back of shot all episode that only came out and moved whilst everyone else freeze framed during mouthpiece, and they had a guy with soccer ball skills on during another.
Further action in the house: After the Hollyoaks Hijack, The housemates were given a Brazilian themed party as voted by E4 viewers. Anthony and John started to get a bit disagreeable with each other, ticked off after Anthony poured some water over John, Latoya attempts to sort it out, it comes across like they both might be a little tipsy but Anthony feels like John is being a bit patronising towards him sometimes like he’s less intelligent or something, and even tries to bring up John apparently doing some ‘chocolate face’? hmm. They both seem to simmer down as the week went on though John is even chatting with him about Capitalism and the Scottish accent. Anthony may be starting to come across to some as getting a bigger head though.
Still on John, the others start to grill him a bit again after. discussing between themselves if he’s a mole by being good at acrting and dancing. Calling it a bit of ‘Operation/project X’ they try and prank him out all coming to the diary room and coming out saying BB told them all about his task. John’s has a confused and non-plussed reaction saying they’re gonna look silly when they get out lol.
Nominations are Latoya and Emilia. Emilia and Jeremy clash when Jeremy states he was surprised Latoya was up and not him and Emelia. Emelia takes that as him saying He expected people to vote for Emelia but not Latoya. Jeremy then takes Emelia’s response arguing about it as she’s insulting his intelligence and says along the lines of he’s more intelligent than her, which doesn’t come out quite right as if it might seems Victor might be rubbing off on him. Again they seem to talk it out later on.
Latoya is surprise evicted in the midst of watching ‘Brassed Off’ on the Wednesday. She chooses the ‘nice’ Purple ninja gift of chocolates over empty pizza boxes and a message to the housemates nominations (face to face writing on cards) will take place in 1 hour. John doesn’t like it, saying ‘Bill and Ben’ when asked to confirm. It’s 6 up except John and Anthony for Friday’s double eviction.
Jay and Calista go in the double eviction Jay was a bit of a surprise, although it was a bit of an unpredictable lineup as well in some respects. Thus ending for now the whole whatever thing happening with Anthony and Calista, earlier in the week she was saying how it wasn’t that serious and she didn’t want to be with her ‘boyfriend’ anymore when participating in the group discussion where Anthony was trying to understand why girls stay in bad relationships, then later she’s chatting with Jay about how she thought she was going to marry him (they had him on as a phone in. with a face composite on BLB as well) and having a load of chats with Anthony conflicted about where they stand as mates yet also canoodling in bed and the hot tub and her kissing his shoulder and whatnot, Hmm. The BB house often makes all that complicated both from the housemates and the viewers perspective.
The lettering on the smoking area wall outside rearranged from ‘king area’ to ‘in a rage’ during the week. Also a weird pickup in Dermot’s script on Double eviction, He seemed to refer twice to the housemates with the LEAST votes being booted, but it was a vote to evict. hmm. anyway this time the purple ninja had two custard pies which poor Jeremy copped most of on his eviction outfit, but they’ll probably get that cleaned up for him.
On Big Mouth its interesting Amy is now odds on 1/1 to win, Anthony and John close behind.
Saturday saw BB3’s Kate Lawler return to the house, setting them a mimicking each other task (kinda similar to how they usually put on the performing as other housemates thing near the end of previous seasons. Amy & Nathan, Anthony and Jeremy, and John & Emilia played each other. was pretty funny, although Emilia got a bit put off by John pushing it a bit making a joke about her and Victor’s closeness.
Kate later comes into the house for the take away dinner, playing a bit of a prank on Anthony that Calista’s sold some sort of story about him to the papers. That gets them a bit paranoid for a bit but they kinda cotton on its probably not true. Kate also leaves them with a Hip Hop outfits inspired party later on where Nathan and Anthony are dancing to the Soulja Boy song.
The penultimate day was the BBLB competition winner Jonathan hijacking for a bit, seems his idea might’ve been slightly modified into another sort of dress up task, He had them dress up as celebrities such as Nathan as Elton John, and Emilia as Madonna in the cone bra.
Dermot also hijacks as ‘BBLB’ taking over the house, at first pranking them starting to announce an eviction, then running though their final pleas in character as some of the previous celeb hijackers in the diary room (as he’s done with the F & F all season) and leaving them with a question of whether there’ll be an eviction that night or not.
Finally the Sugababes (The 3.0 Keisha, Heidi & Amelle lineup) entered the house for a performance of ‘About You Now’ and a chat and tour of the house. Keisha apparently knows of Nathan from the scene.
BBLB: 'Brian’s Got Talent' had Brian meeting Lembit Opik (that politician who was going out with one of the Cheeky Girls and has been on Big Mouth a few times) and presenting some policies to students such as a 24/7 Hollyoaks channel lol. Calista and Jay did an outro to Calista’s Bongos song. On the final episode, All Saints Nic and Mel were back and presented Dermot with his ‘Best Bits’ package, introduced by Marcus Bentley as a send off. Later Dermot also was on the finale after party Big Mouth.
The Finale itself had a Screen on the House doors side, Dermot announced Nathan and Jeremy and 6th and 5th then entered the house to do all the interviews as it went. After Nathan/Jeremy, then Anthony/Amy went out in pairs to meet the Purple Ninja outside, Dermot interviewed Emelia and John then announced John the winner.
The Last Big Mouth episode as usual brought all the ex housemates back. James & Matt had also made up a music video to Jay’s ‘Fierce, Now You’re Vulnerable’. LOL.
The Winners week/what they did next special was intro’ed by Marcus, but then ‘hijacked’ by Brian Sewell narrating it. More points on that in the Housemate wrap ups.
I thought this concept worked pretty well, Some of the Hijacks were a bit more inventive and involved than others and it was interesting how they bended with the base rules of BB and stuff. I did hear Dermot mention Paula Abdul earlier on, acc to wiki she had to pull out as well as someone else due to scheduling. I wonder if any were fill ins or they had backups anyway (Possibly James Corden & Matt Horne?) anyways.
I thought it could’ve been fun if Davina was the last Hijacker, but at least it was Dermot which I thought was pretty fitting as this season. was kinda left to him as a sort of project to helm as a send off before going to X Factor full time. The Best Bits was pretty well done, Will be missed from BBLB even if he was a bit cringe/daggy at times Haha. Will be interesting to see George Lamb fill the hosting role from here.
James and Matt were good on Big Mouth too. I think Rotating hosts continues for BB9.
John getting the free pass to the final was a bit contentious, as someone mentioned it could’ve been good to see him be put up or even just having the threat of being up a couple times, although otoh Anthony coming fourth after never being up was a surprise, as was Emelia coming runner up and Victor being second choice in the votes both times, so it could go different ways.
The slight new additions to the house layout were cool, and also the cast played off each other in the dynamics pretty well.
Some housemates thoughts:
Jade: She came across as a bit too happy all the time, although she also was in Mensa and didn’t have to do much to defy stereotypes about beauty pageant girls. She also kinda gave me some Bindi Irwin vibes a little bit. She went on to continue her dancing and also started a gymnast group apparently also appeared as a card bearer at the 2012 London Olympics.
Victor and Emelia: So yeah, its been said but there was obviously some under the surface tensions there that didn’t come across that well moreso from Victor’s side towards his sister that go a bit beyond just regular sibling teasing you’d think. Watching their part of the What happened after special was interesting too, Emelia had put on a little weight during Big Brother, yet their mother is putting her straight back to work headed to Berlin and She’s having some trouble readjusting to the Ball contortion and the duo rollerskating act. They did practice during the show whilst Victor was there, and while I understand that its obviously a highly dangerous and skilled act they kinda need to be in sync for and that’s part of why their relationship has grown to be as tight knit as it is despite the rest of Victor’s behaviour.
The other thought I had was there must be a bit of generational pressure to keep the family business going as well placed on them. Also a little unsure of how much Emelia believes in her own self autonomy as well, given she was only 18 and how much consideration you can give that and even after Victor left, appearing to still back him up and clash with LaToya and such iykwim.
Anyhow, Emelia appears to have continued in the spotlight now and again, Apparently before Celeb Hijack they both were on some type of BBC show run by Graham Norton winning some prize money, Their mother Carmen was a trainer on a Cirque Show on Sky One, and then Emelia later popped up as ‘Emily England’ in 2015 on Britain’s Got Talent and 2017 on America’s Got Talent - both times dancing with another older Brother called ‘Billy’ who looks very similar to Victor only with a beard and a bit more of a casual British accent to my ears anyway. Some articles are unsure even whether thats a different brother or its just Victor rebranded. hmmm.
Liam: Appeared to be a bit introverted at first meowing to himself, until this whole other revelation came out about his bisexuality and other erm activities. He did then become a bit of a punchline regarding the self love and cushions and stuff. He did have an alright voice singing those songs, but as the next special showed, not really any musical direction to making a career there.
He’s since apparently continued doing the entrepreneurial business thing, also apparently changed his name to Zack (possibly to distance a little away from his edit as a bit kooky sexually on the show perhaps?) Had to laugh though when Jay was bitching a little about him in the Next special saying he might’ve made up the whole thing about having it off with all those guys and girls, next scene its Liam being guest judge of ‘Pr0n Idol’ at a club with a couple twinky guys getting it out and flopping around lol.
Also the fixation on his hairstyle which was even compared to Donald Trumps combover at one point on BBLB. um thats kinda cringe how thats aged, and 2. about a year and half later they’d all be comparing it to early Justin Bieber probably haha.
Latoya: also started out kinda blending in until her big moment being the ‘Improv’ that went pear shaped. Nonetheless she seemed to be pretty level headed otherwise, and provided a bit of comedy with the bedroom door coming back to smack her and also toppling over the couch. I was a bit over Emilia at that point of the surprise eviction, but Maybe Latoya may also have just continued coasting again idk. She appeared in a lot of Music video It’d be fun to go and pick her out but apparently has kept a bit of a lower profile in the years after, working in Budapest? and dancing.
Jay: He gave a few funny moments and catchphrases like Lovesit, megatron, and of course ‘Fierce, Now your vulnerable’. It was a bit of a surprise he went in the double before the finale I thought. He’s since gone on to continue work in fashion and Styling.
Calista: She was another one that kind-of coasted in the background at first, then her storyline appeared to be mostly being conflicted about whatever was going on with her ‘boyfriend’ outside the house (btw not sure if that Russell brand composite face to match the phone call was from Calista’s supposed BF on BBLB I mentioned before or it might’ve been Amy’s, who was spotted reuniting with her after the finale). She also continued with music afterwards, thanks to the exposure the bongo’s song and that ‘fanny hill’ or whatever it was called got on the show.
Nathan: Was fairly known before the show with his album Masterpiece and song Come into my room, and known by a couple artists. Afterwards he popped up again as part of X Factor UK 2012 (I took a quick look for his audition but from a quick skim Cant really see if theres a reunion with Dermot haha) but didn’t make the cut into the final live shows at judges houses with Nicole Scherzinger. You know who was in his category though, James Arthur and also Rylan!).
More recently he was in the headlines for the wrong reasons doing a prison stint for being part of a fraud money laundering scam targeting the elderly or something. I thought he initially came across pretty mature in his edit, preferring to stay out of some of the conflict on the show, but perhaps having a slight veneer of cockiness at other moments.
Jeremy: He was funny if not more for the couple times he was the punchline for Russel Brand and Chris Moyles in their hijacks taking it in good stead. He got into the characters he played too. Kindof got a bit caught up in being Victor’s offsider, then clashing a bit back and forth with Emelia (whom apparently also had a boyfriend she revealed on the final Big Mouth! (Insert friends ‘that is brand new information!’ gif) lol. Ah well. Anyway apparently he hasn’t done much racing at all since that year (2008) and instead headed into uni and work in the property/finance field or something.
Anthony: As they said earlier on he came across very well and not up himself like you expect a boxer might be, Although he did seem to be getting a little bit of a bigger head with the female gaze and stuff by the end, and having that frizzle with John, and also trying to work out where he stood in the whole Calista thing, but it wasn’t anything too derailing and he came out of it pretty well. After the show He went to the 2010 Comm Games and 2012 London Olympics, and also later appeared on Strictly Come Dancing.
Amy: I enjoyed her journey, she also was one of the ones that came across perhaps the most mature, and with her conceptual art background and mannerisms also reminded me a little bit of Shell from BB5. She aced that SAS task, and she was pretty well spoken explaining stuff to the others as well as the Hijackers in the diary room. At ther time she also looks wise reminded people of Heather Mills. After the show she has continued in art and set up a website and stuff.
John: He was entertaining and was actually a pretty good dancer in some of those freestyle moments haha. The free pass to the end did play on him a little towards the end and also the scruinty from the others during Russell Brands hijack and 'Project X', but he carried himself well. Afterwards he stood for a general election in 2010, and set up a leadership company Dare2Lead in 2011. He also has had a little bit of a glow up in the years since. And continued working in politics.
So that's CH done, next up, a few opening BB9 notes.
Launch: Opening titles and logo are following a kindof sharp and ‘shattering’ theme. one of the little edges/wedges of the eye is a different colour for the spin offs too i.e Green for Big Mouth, Orange for BBLB, and Red seems to be the main show along with the black and white/silver.
The house was shown being completely dismantled and rebuilt; it has some kindof punishment cage in the garden, as well as a solitary confinement white room hidden somewhere. ‘Zero Tolerance’ or something or other. Theres also a glassy enclosed room outside, and the pool is more central in the garden again. Theres a ‘Luxury’ style bedroom of the garden and on the opposite side one with beds that have thin mattresses and not as fluffy carpet.
Inside theres a smallish kitchen for 16! launch night housemates this time, You can see right into the bathroom from the lounge area which is more central over by the corner, and like the bedrooms the entryway is a little bit similar to BB3, only this time the stairwell is enclosed, and the Diary room door in through it rather than either side. Theres also going to be some kind-of Token used in the shopping that they’re probably going to squabble over. The Diary room is red and padded, the Chair gives off an audio speaker metallic kinda vibe.
Outside the big screen on the house outside wall has been moved over into the crowd area, forming a sortof horseshoe entry way where the new arrivals are being driven in and getting out of the back of a van this time, some of them starting to go the other way at first and having to be redirected toward the podium.
The stairwell outside is back to being directly out from the entry door to the podium again, no more loooong walk around like BB8/Celeb Hijack this time.
The first two housemates are a couple. Mario (real name Shaun, Sean however he spells it) and Lisa. She kinda reminds me a little of Justine in looks from BB4 and Lauren from Celeb BB this year. Next in are Luke and Stephanie.
Now the opening twist is that these 4 have to keep up a ruse that its actually Mario and Stephanie that are the couple to avoid nomination, if they succeed the rest of the house will be up (essentially a 12 way vote straight up). Mario decides to age himself down a bit and go with a story he’s some kindof football player (making Stephanie a WAG type girl I suppose).
Theres a few colourful characters this season, You’ve got Dennis who seems pretty camp and OTT, Michael is blind and was lead in by an assistant seems a little eccentric, Alexandra was a bit pouty and got a lot of boos, seems like could be this seasons Charley figure, It’ll be interesting to see if Dale and Rex were playing themselves up a bit in the audition package or they’re really sure of themselves kinda thing we shall see iykwim, Jennifer was drawing comparisons to Cheryl Cole and similarly her package had some strong views. Darnell has an American accent and is also albino.
Rebecca seemed really OTT excited and then you got … Cookie! (Kathreya) LOL She’ll be a laugh but It’ll be interesting to see them in another mode. Mohamed fro was giving me a bit of Guy Sebastian back in his ’03 Australian Idol era haha and Stephanie was compared to Abbey Clancy from Britains Next Top Model I gather.
First Big Mouth, The set has a door at the back the host enters through (first show was Jack Whitehall), they have a masked celebrity in the audience who is revealed at the end, and a tv set with an at home webcam viewer in the audience. The guests are seated on a bench that unlike last series its more on ground level and the set feels slightly more compact too. They also had a fashion expert in the audience with one of those tablets you can make marks on video footage with a pen to judge their outfits this episode and were holding up ‘Good/Evil’ placards on their initial impressions of the housemates.
BBLB set is pretty orange themed with video screens all around the perimeter and a couch in the middle, with a side area. Little bit similar to BB5’s set.
What was cool about this first Episode for George Lamb Hosting (with co presenter Zeze Ifore, I wonder if shes going to be permanent or drops off after a bit like Dermot’s assistant did in BB2) was that the audience was entirely ex-hm’s like a reunion special! Main guests were John McCririck with Sam and Amanda from last season. I had fun trying to see who was there I think I could pick out nearly everyone there except maybe whoever was the housemate sitting next to Michelle (BB5) up the right side at the back, Think it was a girl could. be Saskia or Kinga maybe from BB6?
Iirc they had BB2: Bubble, Dean, Narinder BB3: Alex, Adele BB4: Gos?, Jon Tickle BB5: Jason, Victor, Michelle, Marco (with hair!) BB6: Maxwell & Makosi BB7: Glyn, Spiral, Aisleyne (Nikki in VT at Launch) BB8: Brian, Liam, Sam & Amanda, Gerry, Seany Celeb Hijack: Jade, Nathan.
So the secret task is facing a hurdle straightway, Mario could only talk to Luke about BB asking him to propose to Stephanie, and they’re signing papers and stuff so it looks legit (although its not gonna be legally binding or anything) Lisa had to keep a straight face in the little preview.
Also it’ll be interesting to see what they do with the bedroom situation on the first daily show too whether they’ll default to boys and girls rooms to start with or they’ll mix it up.
Oh, you're about to be introduced to the genius that is Zezi Ifore!
Back to Hijack and the free pass really did ruin it and put a cloud over an otherwise decent series. Baffling how John won it. The idea of them being young talent means it's interesting that a few of them went to have a bit of success in their field afterwards.
Haha yeah she kinda gives me little bit maybe Casey Donovan or Fuzzy Agolley kinda hosting energy. Also some other faces I didn't mention in the BBLB audience there was Nicky & Kara-Louise from BB8 up the the rear left corner too.
Second part of week 1 Big Mouth was hosted by Chris Moyles, some funny VT Intro’s ‘I Want It That Way’ as Aj from the Backstreet Boys was on as a Guest, and then Chris also had a Marty McFly Back to the future opening skit as all 4 of the band McFly were on as guests. They also had the first evictee straight off the back of the eviction in the second part of Friday’s episode, and a streaker gag.
I also noticed in one of the VT packages about someone in a chewbacca/bigfoot costume going to some red carpet and labelling all the celebs as the wrong names, there was Dan O’Connor (from Aus Idol 2004 and Neighbours) popped up labelled as ‘Ben Fogle’ lol. Matching the timelines up his last scenes on Neighbours were that year and I also see later he appeared on Hollyoaks in 2011-12.
George and Zezi continue to settle in to BBLB, its still a little clunky at times, but they’re finding their groove. A couple of episodes had a theme for the audience, such as gymnasts, Students, Journalists, etc. The Fake Wedding episode had Keith Lemon going into the camera run. Some of the Housemates F & F, they also had Emma Griffiths (soon to be Willis) on, a drag act known as ‘Jodie Harsh’, Jack Whitehall, Geoffrey Beattie and Iain Lee is back and apparently doing a podcast type thing this season called ‘Big Ears’. Grace Dent appears to be coming on regularly with a segment called ‘Critics Eyes’ and there were a couple of games and a new regular segment known as DAFT VENDOR where you can call in to dispense something of the housemates.
Outside of theres no phone ins for BB Shout this time around, in favour of everything coming in Via Text or email or through the online BBLB Forum which is read out from the side panel with a keyboard and mouse. They also announce the result of the days poll question at the end.
More action this week from the house. So the proposal went off (they had to wait for Lisa to come out of the luxury bedroom bathroom to gather around the pool. Steph starts freaking out a bit in the diary room after BB announces theres going to be the Wedding taking place and putting up a (fake) premises licence on the fridge (which is camouflaged in red against the kitchen wall btw) and putting the papers (which aren’t legally binding anyway) for them to sign. Some of the housemates like the Dennis, Alex, Dale, Sylvia group are pretty suspicious though and think Mario and Steph are actors.
Theres a stag and hens do where the hens go to the task room at the far side of the garden, and the Stag do is in the garden in a little circle. As Alex, Jenny and Sylvia weren’t chosen in the hens do, they go to the stag do but BB gives them bunny outfits to wear which they dont want to fully wear, so Michael enlists Dale and Dennis to wear them instead. This leads eventually to some fun in the bathtub where Mikey picks up Sylvia’s kickers and puts them on, which dosent go down well with her and Alex.
The next morning, Wedding day Steph and Mario clash when she doesn’t want him in the kitchen as he’s trying to help Mikey, he spits the dummy and calls the wedding off (which upsets Mikey as he was picked as best man), but after a pep talk from Lisa and Luke they get back on track and it goes on (My Heart Goes on too, as the song the housemates all sing at the wedding, and in the diary room afterwards lol).
BB reveals that Mario and Steph aren’t a couple after its all done, asks the housemates to choose who they think the real couple are, and they pick Mario and Lisa, so they’ve failed that task and all 4 will be up for eviction.
Alexandra is very headstrong and getting into lots of arguments this week, The 4 failing that task may have saved her this week, because the Audience still chanting get Alex out on the Friday. There was ‘Chip gate’ where she took an issue with Rebecca cooking soggy oven chips, and having it out with her in front of everyone in the lounge. Steph regained some points by attempting to stand up to/reason with Alex, as did Rachel.
There’s the usual fights over food, Both Alex and Mohamed copped it for appearing to use too much for themselves, whereas theres some grumbling throughout the group about whether it should be left to Rex as has a chef background, or whether he’s taking it over too much. Drama Drama. Darnell and Jennifer temporarily clash over her assumption that Darnell is keeping to himself and is unapproachable or something, later when the housemates do their own talent show She has second thoughts about putting on a skimpy outfit after Mario calls it out for seeming hypocritical the way she carried on about the bunny outfit. Later having a cry in the diary room that she felt stupid but Alex and the others reassured her (in a nice moment from Alex who has been pretty full on this week, bonding over them being young mothers).
The Shopping task is in 2 parts, first the housemates donned spandex suits and endurance held a board with light above their heads. Last 2 were Dennis and Rachel. BB Gives them a picnic, but they hardly eat any of it thinking it’s a test as the second part of the task to resist temptation. It’s not.
The real second part was they had to feed through a wand on a wire track (cables carried by Rex as helper) all the way around the garden and into the house without touching it otherwise the others all kitted up in the suits with muscle stimulators would be zapped. They got given 2 hours to do it, coming close after about 15 goes but failed. During which the others were whining that it was really painful and Alex/Sylvia took 2 of the 3 allotted fails by quitting and taking their suits off. Alex clashed with Rex after him saying she reckons she’s a big woman she should be able to hack it. I could kinda see where he might’ve been coming from, nothing else seems to cut through to Alex like trying to argue with a brick wall as she just gives it back, so fighting fire with fire may cut through, but otoh it did sound a bit harsh at the same time YMMV. They also clashed over Rex trying to get her lighter from Dennis after she said no because he got Darnell to ask her for him, and/or ‘borrowing’ her cigs along with Mo but they seem to become civil again after a bit.
Dennis is a bit disappointed in himself, but soon enough they all perk up when actually doing the shopping (in which they can also buy more tokens) but also they buy some ‘mystery gifts’ which is a bottle of ‘Moonshine’ and a song play voucher. I don’t think theres been many times thus far housemates have been that excited to receive the rations shopping, but they have a bop to The Ting Tings ‘That’s not my name’. Kathreya has been having some Cookie withdrawals.
Rex and Steph are getting on well but its brought up also that he has a GF on the outside and might be getting slightly paranoid about how it looks. Mario and Lisa appear to be talking to some of the others about maybe Steph will go as she’s looking bad for being the main failure point of the secret task.
Eviction comes around, Davina this season is going back to doing the announcements to the house from the studio with the audience silent. Stage is a little bit like BB6’s, I liked that layout. There were some rumblings of it looking between Steph and Mario to go, and It’s Steph.
Personally I was thinking maybe it would have been interesting viewer wise if Lisa went (I enjoy Luke, Steph maybe could’ve been given more of a shot, and Mario might be lost without Lisa or continue to arc up), I did feel for Steph a little bit getting dropped into that whole task and bearing most of the hard stuff to try and make it work (getting icked out by the prospect of kissing Mario and all that stuff to make it look a bit more legit) But, otoh there were still a few plays they could’ve made perhaps like Luke could’ve maybe tried to plant more seeds that Steph and Idk.. Dale were the real couple (to maybe try and throw off the similarities of Mario and Lisa), or even though Steph had the proposal dropped on her maybe she could’ve still tried to spin the story she’d already spun about it maybe starting to become a bit of a rocky relationship but she was saying yes for now but will see how it goes or whatever, but thats the way it went down. As said earlier, at the least it’s given Alex another week, let’s see how long she can last.
Dale and Jennifer are also getting along pretty well, although after the eviction I think she’s starting to get a bit paranoid about the Alex/Sylvia/Dennis group, after Sylvia comes to her that’s she’s becoming self aware of how she might be perceived getting dragged into association with Alex’s arguments and such or if Dennis and Alex are going to start ‘Game playing against Mario and Lisa, or Rex, Mo and the ‘B Block’ room or whatever they’ve started calling themselves, ..maybe even turning on Alex?. Meanwhile Mario and Lisa think they got through cause of their Fanbase back home and appearing on things like Ant and Dec, also keeping track of who came up to congratulate them.
Just on the Bedrooms too, I counted about 7 beds in each room, and all the Luxury bedroom ones are doubles, so theoretically that room could comfortably sleep all but two of them unless they tripled up or someone brought in something for the floor or something perhaps, except theres a handful that aren’t fussed about choosing to go into the other room. Highly likely at some point they’ll do some sort of rich and poor side task again though I’d reckon.
So onto week 2, it’ll be interesting to see how the dynamics continue from here.
BB set them a mini task to learn musical instruments and play When The Saints Go Marching In, Darnell being the conductor as he came to the Diary room (chosen by the others). Darnell and Mario have a tense conversation or two over Darnell attempting to explain to Mario that some of them might be more musically minded (Mario tries to make out like Darnell is being offensive and insinuating that the others are dumb for a moment, also continuing to mollycoddle Mikey) but they arent being 'wasted' on 'easy' instruments like drums as those parts are actually important for keeping rhythm and leading the rest of the group. Anyways its only to win a bonus Token and they fail miserably. BB gives them another shot later in the week and same go.
Alex and co still bitching about the food, namely Mo eating a hell of a lot. Alex also gets into him asking why he dosent stand up for himself against Rex 'putting him down' as she thinks. Mo has taken his hair back out again.
Theres another mini task to lick crisps and sort them into 4 flavours with a 5% chip tolerance. They end up failing that although they passed 2 or 3 out of 4 categories.
Dennis out of the blue gets in a mood about people apparently being too nice or seeming to two face and calls a meeting after someone apparently overheard him talking about Rachel and put it to her that someone thinks she's too nice and like Mother Theresa or something. Later Mario Lisa and some others are discussing this like she's perhaps coming across a bit too positively optimistic about things like attempting the tasks and stuff like that, might be too afraid to get into the reality/grit when people don't get along etc etc Iykwim.
For Mo's Birthday he suggests a 'crossdressing' theme where some of them dress up as each other. Darnell and Dennis swap and are pretty funny in Diary Room Uncut (also Darnell and Kat have made up a few songs to sing to BB in the diary room across the week). Alex however dosent participate and is pretty ticked off as its revealed the reason She is so invested is because she's a Muslim apparently too. She keeps her opinions to herself and Sylvia, until... BB has Mo in the diary room and of all the questions to 'accidentally' broadcast to the house in error, its 'what do you think about Alexandra not participating?' and Alex gets Mo straight out into the B Block bedroom to grill him and tell him how she thinks he's disgracing himself.
BB calls her into the Diary Room to explain that BB probes all housemates and she isnt being singled out, but the next day she just cant let it go and starts arguing it over with Mo again. Alex gets another warning for 'intimidating behaviour'.
The housemates are woken up to The Vapors' 'Turning Japanese' for this weeks task, the house has been decked out with some Japanese decorations and furniture, and the housemates wear robes and for the girls (except Lisa doing the Karate part of the task) some Geisha esque makeup faces. They in groups have to do something part of Japanese Culture. Darnell, Lisa and Jen do some Karate routine, Dale has to Karate chop a block of wood, Mikey, Mo and Kat have to learn Japanese phrases, and Rebecca, Sylvia, Alex, Dennis and Rex all take turns going to the Karaoke room adjacent the Diary room to sing Total Eclipse of The Heart - repeatedly. They even had Bonnie Tyler herself phone in to BBLB this week.
The Housemates pass the task, the language trio only failed their part. Nominations this week were Alexandra and Mario. No surprises, although both Sylvia and Dennis both nominated Alex after discussions that she was becoming a liability for both of them and realising how it made them look in conjunction with being in her circle so to speak I think.
However due to comments made in a conversation had in the lounge where Alex made some vague references to having gangster friends, seeing all their loved ones on the outside and making plans and whatnot, which could reasonably be taken as more threatening behaviour, Alex is called to the Diary room. It sounded like they might've possibly been giving her a final chance to realise how her behaviour was affecting others there for a moment, but she didnt back down, kept arguing the point and thus was removed.
The Eviction was therefore cancelled and it was announced that a new housemate would be going in on Friday. They had Aisleyne (BB7) on BBLB as well. Davina pre recorded an interview on the empty eviction stage with Alexandra to be played as part of the Eviction show - mentioning that she was on track to be evicted at 87% of the vote when lines closed.
Alexandra still tried to play down a lot of her behavour but at the end did seem to see at least some of what Davina was putting across in that it was how the other housemates were becoming more and more uncomfortable with her aggression and theres subtle differences in having a semi-reasoned argument vs more attacking iykwim. And I think like someone said on BBLB its probably coming from somewhere in her past that she's learned to cope by being so defensive and having such a wall up which is something maybe she couldve learned from for after (when I get to the Afterstory perhaps). At the end of the day, silly thing to do to go on about it the way she did that was the final straw. But, we move along.
Shopping list has squabbles, and Rex seems to be starting to live up to the accusations of letting control of the Kitchen so to speak go to his head a little bit. Mo struggles to be heard to get his Halal meat on the list, and they end up overspending by about 100 pound, so the bottom part of the list gets cut off, including the meat. Mo calls yet another group meeting about it the next day. Kat is on Rex's side thinking he's going to make mistakes with how chaotic that process usually is, and its not on purpose. Whereas Mario is starting to take issue with Rex thinking he's running the shopping like he does with his restaurant stocking and knows better than the others who are look at it more like a family discussion allocation kinda thing.
They buy some more special prizes which includes a blow up croc for the pool, a massive cookie for Kat, and another song token (its Total Eclipse though - which Mario and Lisa have a private dance to in the bedroom and its all a bit get a room lol - earlier in the week it looked like some doona dancing was about to commence and BB called Mario to the Diary room. randomly lol.
Theres also an envelope which Rebecca opens and its a go directly to Jail card - she makes a sign that BB is a Beast, gets told off in the diary room and has to go back to jail for longer before being let out. Kat thinks Rebecca and Luke would make a cute couple but theyre having none of it.
Mo's also getting into dramas with Sylvia. She reckons he suggested they fake being a couple to make some money selling a story to the magazines. He also has an argument with her using 3 tokens for hair straighteners over saving some for the Hot Water or something.
Sylvia also clashes with Mikey over making noise in the bedroom all night whilst he's trying to sleep. She feels singled out and like the young ones aren't allowed to 'have fun' which is missing the point IMO.
BBLB, they had an Agent on with Steph about all the things housemates do after they leave, a few games like guessing the HM's favourite sandwich with Zeze making sandwiches in front of a professional celebrity sandwich maker, Liz McClarnon from Atomic Kitten, and more.
Big Mouth was hosted this week by Queens of Noize (a DJ Duo Mairead Nash and Tabitha Denholm). Guests included Dane Bowers, Johann who was on On The Couch last season, and Du'ane Ladejo from Gladiators who was wearing the gladiator costume.
Also on BBLB, they've started a new '____ Watch' this time its 'Will They Or Won't They Watch' between Jen and Dale - nothing much appears to be happening, and some of them think its a bit one sided on Dales behalf. It was amusing when they both of them were having the conversation about how Dale would have to 'really like Jen' because she 'has a kid' and they're mouthing every second sentence to each other like someones listening in but theyre having this conversation in plain broad daylight in the middle of the lounge with everyone milling about.
The housemates not knowing what was gonna happen with the Friday show and crowd noise outside though really played with their minds and it revealed an interesting side of Dale - he starts getting a bit emotional about not being ready to go yet - they theorise that one of them might be called to the diary room to evict someone or they'll have opened the lines for everybody or something and Dale is paranoid that the public will hate him because he feels that people have disliked him in the past. Basically it seems like his self esteem and confidence/security in himself that way is very low/on the floor atm iykwim.
So when the new housemate arrives (another Stuart!) This lot are really paranoid about everything lately and overthinking BB as if most things could be a twist. Even though Rex says He's kinda stopped caring about what BB might do to them and what will be will be, just scenes before he was involved in the discussion at the Ashtray messing with Dales insecurity that Stuart might be someone's Ex and they have to keep it secret for a task, or that Stuart is Jen's ex, or that he's been put in with a mission to get with Jen.
Stuart is a fan of the guyliner, kinda makes his eyes come off idk a bit 'pretty' in some angles, and some of the slight mannerisms in the package had my gaydar/bi-dar tweaking, but apparently he addressed that he gets asked that sometimes and apparently no. He has a daughter too so something in common with Jen.
Butttt Don't think Dale has anything to worry about on that front Jen was chatting with Sylvia aside (who apparently did meet him through auditions before) and yikes... Sylvia is blatantly talking about how she wont be able to help herself (because as usual she HAS A BOYFRIEND) and later is pretty much throwing herself at Stuart, having a bath with him and jumping into bed with him wanting a cuddle before she heads off to her own bed. It reminded me a little bit of you know that video of the Lioness in heat thats flaunting her butt alll over a clearly uninterested Lion, and this is all within like what ... 3 hours he's been in the house - and the others are noticing. What you doing girl, this could be messy AF but also wild TV for the dynamics of the house and the show, buttt it could also be innocent - watch this space We'll see what happens and how Stuart settles in.
Theres another mini task to lick crisps and sort them into 4 flavours with a 5% chip tolerance. They end up failing that although they passed 2 or 3 out of 4 categories.
I’d guess it was done by weight of the bags, since the results were given in percentages of the pot of crisps ( I.e “25% were Worcestershire, housemates sorted 22%”). They also weren’t allowed to eat them to throw this off.
Also extra note on the Japanese task, Luke, Mario, and Rachel mustve had the using chopsticks part of the task was only shown pretty briefly.
There was also some signs about including on in the garden reading ‘If you stand on this spot on one leg barking like a dog, you will automatically win a luxury shopping budget for the house’.
I thought they might’ve had a hint to work it out if they had the inclination perhaps (giving the language group a separate sheet with learning Japanese characters?) but then it might’ve also just been too easy not to try in the rest of the task and just thrown in there as a gag that they wouldn’t be likely to work out anyway kinda thing unless someone happened to know how to read Japanese. Haha.
It’s interesting to read your thoughts - BB9 isn’t a series that I have revisited since its initial airing in 2008, but I did enjoy it a lot more than BB8.
The Launch twist isn’t something I look back on with fondness - it definitely set Stephanie up for a miserable first week in the house by having the 19 year old girl pretend to be in a relationship with a 42 year old man.
No, I hated that but overall it's one of the better later series on C4 for me with decent housemates and a game for the housemates to actually play with the Heaven and Hell, HoH and Nomination Challenge format points. It really was a mistake not evolving HoH from that series into those that followed.
The week begins as Stuart gets asked about looking for love in the house, and Jen gets pissed off hearing how Rex was telling Stuart that basically all the girls are pretty much spoken for and She takes it as Rex attempting to assert himself in the house as if he might as well have taken it out and marked all of them as his territory or something. This, like. a few things this week, is important for later.
Sylvia and the food/cookie stash: Mikey overhears her discussing it with Jen (like last week they were even eating some in the bedroom while he was there). Mikey speaks to Mo about it who then attempts to bring it up to Sylvia but gets argued down. Later in the week Custard Creams go missing and Sylvia is the number one suspect.
Sylvia appears to be super conflicted about the way she’s been acting towards Stuart, confiding in the others and crying, but after a talk with Stuart addressing the elephant in the room they seem to agree to just chill and continue being mates as Stuart says its only been 2 days and its a bit much.
There’s a mini-task where the housemates either painted or sculpted Stuart as a life drawing (he had pants on but also grapes for effect) Dale thinks it was a bit set up to stir things between Jen himself and Stuart, as Jen was telling Dale just before that it’s as if BB put in someone that ‘ticked a lot of boxes’ as to what some of the might have put down in applications to a question like ‘what do you find attractive’ or something kinda thing. Stuart chooses Jen as the winner (Again this becomes very important for later as the winning painting is then displayed on the fridge door by BB).
Next day though a bit of high school level melodrama ensues as Sylvia asks Stuart if she can jump in his bed, which then gets Stuart talking to Jen as if Sylvia only asked him that because she thought Stuart was eyeing Jen off, and to push her back towards Dale. Jen is now getting fed up with the HS bullshit its turning into. Sylvia gets wind of this and then goes to wake up Stuart to set her motivations straight, the goes and wakes him up again just to say ‘and stop flirting with me’ OMG indeed Stuart. lol. The next morning they sort it out again though.
Mo and Dennis also have a bit of friction which I think in the edit comes out of the blue again with Dennis suddenly in a huff about Mo laughing at something that Dennis thought was borderline homophobic or something the previous night in a discussion. At first Dennis just keeps blanking Mo’s attempts to talk to him about it, but the they sort it out in the bedroom and have a fake ‘improv’ shove fight outside for a moment (unlike the one in Celeb Hijack that went on too long lol). Also this is important for later.
This week’s task is to recreate the choreography from the viral music video for OkGo’s ‘Here It Goes Again’ (released as a single in 2006) with the Treadmills (set up in the Task room). They have 15 minutes to decide who will take the main roles for the task, Rex and Rebecca put their hand up for the dancers but get passed over which gets Rebecca a little annoyed as Mario and Luke think they should be strategic to pick the ones most likely to pick it up quickest and/or are fit and co-ordinated to pass the task for the budget. Darnell reassures her there’ll be other chances to get involved
Dale, Sylvia, Stuart and Rachel are the dancers, Dennis is the choreographer who also gets them running and doing push up drills, and Jen/Lisa are the makeup/stylist. They practice in the task room, however Rachel hurts her hand and ends up having to sit the task out. Rex steps in the second day of practice in her place.
The Jail gets a workout this week, first BB calls them together as a heap of them can’t seem to stop talking about the Audition/Chaperoning process before the show. Dennis and Jen volunteer to sit in Jail for that. Whilst they were in there, Dale starts randomly shit talking Rex about ‘talking with his dick out’ not realising Rex is laying there across the way and questions what he means. They later have an aside where Dale says he was just talking nonsense. But also Rex and Mohamed have a nominations discussion (speculating who might have voted for who on Rex’s part which he claims he didn’t know was part of the rule break, hmm really now and Mo trying to count nominations for himself) and are thrown in Jail overnight The housemates are offered a chance to bail them out for a token, but Kat and Rachel are outvoted. BB lets them out (apart from periodic breaks) later on.
Next Dennis & Darnell attempt to count nominations, so the next day they are put in Jail. At first they try and lie to the others that it was BB bringing up an old Chaperoning discussion from last week to mess with taking Dennis away from the task and make it hard for them. Luke however comes in to check about no body else apart from Dennis being able to operate the DVD for practice whilst Dennis is in jail, and BB confirms the rule break was for discussing nominations. He comes straight out with it afterwards though whereas I did have av thought maybe it could’ve been interesting to tease that out a little more by the others not letting on to Dennis and Darnell that that know that it was for noms chat, but they don’t know that they know and they think that THEY think… and so on lol.
But anyways, the Others get ready for the task performance, Rex gets a little bit weird about wearing pink from the choices of outfits, yet seems ok with the makeup and everything else. ok. Dale on the other hand rocks some eyeliner and its brought up on BBLB and Big Mouth wther he’s kindof mirroring Stuart’s look to try and outdo him or something. Sylvia later mentions to Jen how hot Dale looks but later admit she was just joking and causing some momentary chaos out of boredom. same thing with calling Luke a wanker out of nowhere. Dale also mentions how he thinks he wouldn’t be asked to do a photo shoot like Jen or some of the girls would after the show - come on now Dale.
They do well for that long routine (haven’t watched the original video in a while, there was a lot of steps) and make some minor mistakes like extra claps or head turns in the wrong direction, however they weren’t deemed material enough to fail and they passed the task. The Shopping list special prizes this week included a Get Out Of Jail free card, some pink hair dye as suggested by viewers (which a few of them use for streaks and stuff for the eviction night), but no cookies this week for Kat as they overspent again.
To cap off the week, we had breaking news on the Friday episodes that Dennis was removed from the house! So it kicks off Thursday night, in ‘Picturegate’ I guess you could call it. Where Rex takes it upon himself to put his finger on part of Jen’s painting and smudge it, which greatly upsets Jen. tbf when the original showed back up on the following Diary Room Uncut compared to the shot of it ‘post smudge’, I can see where Rex and Rachel also commented that the part that was actually smudged was just the leg of the couch Stuart was on, really immaterial to the main subject, but regardless that was a bit beside the point and it wasn’t a nice thing to do and again pretty poor foresight by Rex that wasn’t a good idea in the first place and was highly likely to upset Jen.
To his credit, he attempts to straightaway apologise, but I could also see where Dale was coming from slightly in that it might’ve come across looking a bit insincere when Stuart and Dale were onto him to go and apologise again, which they then started having a go at him to get out of the room, which just made things worse and exacerbated the situation, was that I dunno, the tact and delivery of it seemed a little off, might’ve been better to apologise once and then leave it alone until morning, Rex keeping a stoic face so as to not antagonise Jen any further but at the same time insisting that he didn’t mean to upset Jen and he’s saying sorry may have come across as ‘look I’m sorry that you were offended and I’m apologising now, so it should be all good now’ to Dale or the others.
Then to add fuel to the fire, Mo jumps in but him simply starting his attempt at explaining the situation off with ‘its just a picture’ comes off as aggressive and triggering to Dale and Stuart setting them off, whom some commentators may have also taken as further peacocking behaviour in defence of Jen, and they also take him ’squaring up’ to Rebecca standing up to Mo and telling him to shut up badly as well, and it just gets pretty messy quickly from there.
At this point Dennis comes in and spits in Mo’s face, which is really unjustifiable. Mario takes Mo to B Block along with Rex and Darnell as BB steps in to separate everybody, while Dennis gets called to the Diary room. Darnell goes back in pretty heated to ask who thinks that was ok and gets in Dales Face, Dale tries to calm him down and takes him back to B Block then returns to the Luxury bedroom.
The next day, Dennis is called to the diary room and removed from the house. The others are told and initially its about to kick off again as Jen says well Mo should be hopefully evicted tonight. BB separates them again but over the course of the day as BB calls them in individually to debrief and they all have some civil one on ones with each other.
Darnell and Jen initially don’t see eye to eye on how Darnell trying to explain to her him coming in shouting is completely different magnitude/levels to Dennis spitting in someones face in terms of unacceptable/aggressive behaviour when it comes to having an argument, but after a while they talk it out with each other and BB and everyone agree to kindof put a line under it all and move on from it.
Sylvia is evicted, and I think in the circumstances, although she might’ve had another interesting week or few in her, with whats just happened Mo could still have an interesting next week or two we’ll see. She got a lot of boos from the crowd, but did I hear the chant change? was it Jen they’ve now turned their attention to?
Luke’s perception may also be starting to shift. Darnell during the week was getting annoyed with some of the ‘fakeness’ he was noticing around the house (such as the ones volunteering to be put in Jail), and at one point appeared to be subtly calling Luke out to his face about how he seems to flit around talking to everybody about everyone. Luke’s also been making some of his own observations, like commenting to others how eager Rex was to participate in the task as potentially trying to get himself back in everyones good books if they pass, but someone to blame if they fail.
He was also seen mentioning to Jen how he thinks if Sylvia went over Mo, that Sylvia might’ve been hated, so It wouldn’t;’t surprise me, if he is starting to more hardcore have a game plan, If that side of the house continues dropping like flies if he’ll start seriously reassessing his allegiances in the house and start hanging out with Rex if it seems advantageous in terms of the game for him, and whether that may affect his image with the public as we get further into the season. Also commented on was Darnell appearing to try cracking on to Rebecca, and joking that Rex ruined his game with that fight because he thought Rebecca might’ve ‘put out’… hmmm not the best look maybe?
As far as Rex goes, Kat again is in his corner, along with obviously Mo and Darnell. I thought they came out looking ok considering all that drama and made some sound points, whereas Jen etc did come around somewhat but did seem to be overreacting slightly to somethings in heat of the moment and taking it a bit OTT in the wrong way at the same time a little bit. They seem to have settled but it’ll probably still be brought up as nominations fodder to base off somewhat we shall see.
What would be really good about now I’m thinking is to book Geoffrey Beattie/Judy James or one of the psych’s on BBLB for another update because theres some interesting dynamics shifts going on atm. We were shown the Hm’s IQ scores again this week on BBLB (also with Jenni Trent-Hughes back on after a while!) But I’d make a guess if they show us Machiavellian that Luke might be high, or that Rex might be low on Emotional Intelligence (by not thinking though how his finger-painting stunt might affect Jen) and stuff like that IYKWIM. I do see they have brought Tomas back on this Sunday’s BBLB though so we’ll see what he talks about.
Some more familiar faces on BBLB, they had Ziggy from BB8 on, also Nasty Nick (BB1) was on playing a is it a rule break quiz alongside Zeze & Nathan A Thomas hooked up to the buzzers. Timmy Mallett, Michael McIntyre The housemates spotted Zeze in the camera run when Noms were announced, Zeze baked some cookies with Barry the baker, Nikki Graham went to the Jung Fu Panda premiere and got Dustin Hoffman to shout Cookies! etc.
Big Mouth was hosted by Jeff Leach this week with some funny intro and VT skits like how Rebecca hid under Lukes bed, or visiting an life art class or dancing studio. They had a virtual audience member from Melbourne, and Sylvia dropped in after her eviction.
The treadmill task a reminder of how much better it was when housemates themselves had to allocate the roles for each task rather than producers pre-determining the roles and taking away the potential drama from the process.
The BB5 Wedding Task a good example - nowadays the producers would just make Michelle and Stuart bride and groom but the memories of that task 20 years on are as a result of the housemates not pandering to that.
