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BBAU Rewatch

Brekkie said:
Although of course BBUS in the first series went with things like "Red Room" and "Banishment" instead of the Diary Room and Eviction. Not sure if that was them doing their own thing or came out of the translation of the Dutch/German versions.

BBUK pretty much set the mould for most future series - they were the first to have a weekly cycle of evictions compared to the two week cycle the European versions had in the early years, somethng most subsequent versions picked up. From documentaries at the time it was something they really had to fight the creators on though.


And back to the "airlock" conversatiion. I'm sure BBUS did add a short corridor between the diary room and main house in the original house too, but it wasn't there in the first series, as seen here in the first ever nominations.

It also wasn't located right next to the lounge until BB5 - originally it was further down by the bedrooms, so away from the main living area. TBH I thought Australia was the same for BB1 and BB2 anyway. BBUK just had sound proof doors until BB8, some of which proved to be more soundproofed than others.
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I was wrong. According to the floor plan on World of BB there was an airlock in the original BBUS house.

AB439F66-B59B-47A5-9A99-E0BFA50F8714.jpeg

Paul Romer, co-creator of the original series, served as the Executive Producer for BB1. I’ll assume things like the DR being called the Red Room and Evictions being called Banishments were translated from the original. In fact BB1 for the most part was just a direct translation from the original Dutch show.
 
Going off topic here but the HoH and DR swapped at some point. I thought the DR was initially where the HoH room is on the plan then swapped in BB5, but that suggests otherwise.

Anyhow, back to BB Aus and didn't they have a Friday night show in BB3 - "The Insider", which I guess now may have been a response to not having the Saturday night show in BB2. Not sure if it even lasted the series though.

Gretel also way more prominent a host than those in the other English language versions at least who only turned up once a week hosting Uncut as well. IIRC they didn't have the seperate nominations show initially though - when did that come in?


And just looking at the archived version of the BB2001 website:

[Big Brother]

Big Brother - the world wide phenomenon comes to Australia. A Southern Star Endemol production for Network TEN.
web.archive.org

So much content, as was the case with most Big Brother websites until they put their eggs in the social media baskets. I stumbled across Big Brother Australia during that first season and was able to follow it all through the website quite easily, and those first few years were great for watching BB worldwide without actually watching it thanks to decent websites and non-geoblocked clips, something which made things trickier towards the end of the decade. The two house twist in BB2003 though was when it really captured my imagination and I think when I joined this place, but might not have been until 2004 I got to watch episodes.
 
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Brekkie said:
Going off topic here but the HoH and DR swapped at some point. I thought the DR was initially where the HoH room is on the plan then swapped in BB5, but that suggests otherwise.

Anyhow, back to BB Aus and didn't they have a Friday night show in BB3 - "The Insider", which I guess now may have been a response to not having the Saturday night show in BB2. Not sure if it even lasted the series though.

Gretel also way more prominent a host than those in the other English language versions at least who only turned up once a week hosting Uncut as well. IIRC they didn't have the seperate nominations show initially though - when did that come in?


And just looking at the archived version of the BB2001 website:

[Big Brother]

Big Brother - the world wide phenomenon comes to Australia. A Southern Star Endemol production for Network TEN.
web.archive.org

So much content, as was the case with most Big Brother websites until they put their eggs in the social media baskets. I stumbled across Big Brother Australia during that first season and was able to follow it all through the website quite easily, and those first few years were great for watching BB worldwide without actually watching it thanks to decent websites and non-geoblocked clips, something which made things trickier towards the end of the decade. The two house twist in BB2003 though was when it really captured my imagination and I think when I joined this place, but might not have been until 2004 I got to watch episodes.
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TV show websites in general were far better in those days than they are now.
 
Indeed nowadays most don't stretch beyond the episodes available to be streamed - and even then often don't have a simple /programmename url to go directly to them.

Interestingly just looked at seven.com.au/bigbrother which just goes to the 7Plus page for the series which aired earlier this year, not BBVIP, which you can't find under /bigbrothervip but can under /bbvip.
 
Meglos said:
It's been almost 20 years seen I saw any of it, but Jessica is the only one I remember fondly.
Particularly one bit that made me laugh out loud where she and Keiran (or Nathan?) were miming with each other's arms, about a toilet

Brodie Young didn't make much of an impact (apart from being generically 'cute'), but he still pops up every day on morning tv advertorials for Chemist Warehouse.
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I liked Keiran both times I watched it in the past. Brodie seemed okay but nothing more just as you say generically cute. I remember Gretel making a comment about Nathan having a crush on him during a cross to the house and Nathan seemed offended by it? After Nathan leaves I remember thinking omg this series is unbearable. I am 99% sure I skipped the final week with just Peter, Sahra and Marty left.
 
Kingston said:
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In BBAUS 1 there was an uncut special which showed uncut footage from around the world (I assume maybe due to there being only 4 or 5 housemates left by the end of uncut there wasn't enough uncut style footage for a show maybe?) and one thing that really shocked me (although I am not sure why it shocks me as it makes total sense) is that alot of houses from the year 2000 around the world looked very similar to the US floor plan.
 
Zcsund1234 said:
In BBAUS 1 there was an uncut special which showed uncut footage from around the world (I assume maybe due to there being only 4 or 5 housemates left by the end of uncut there wasn't enough uncut style footage for a show maybe?) and one thing that really shocked me (although I am not sure why it shocks me as it makes total sense) is that alot of houses from the year 2000 around the world looked very similar to the US floor plan.
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Aside from BBUS, BB Germany and Gran Hermano Spain both used a similar layout and similar Ikea design aesthetics as the original Dutch series. There are others but those are the two I know of.
 
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For what it's worth week 3 and 4 of BB2 are semi enjoyable. I am not laughing like I was in 2001, but thanks to Katrina and Aaron's obsession with their respective weekly tasks there was some drama introduced.
 
Zcsund1234 said:
In BBAUS 1 there was an uncut special which showed uncut footage from around the world (I assume maybe due to there being only 4 or 5 housemates left by the end of uncut there wasn't enough uncut style footage for a show maybe?) and one thing that really shocked me (although I am not sure why it shocks me as it makes total sense) is that alot of houses from the year 2000 around the world looked very similar to the US floor plan.
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All series certainly launching in 2000 and a bit beyond I think launched with basically the same floor plan and the creators had tight control over the look of the house too as they wanted to keep the back to basics feeling - so no surprise they looked similar. The first BBAus house floorplan wise wasn't actually too different either but modified enough that is actually looked quite different.


What really surprises me is given the control over the look of the house that the show was able to have it's own distinctive look and sound in each country it launched in, compared to say Millionaire which had launched a couple of years earlier and set the model in a show looking the same around the world. Whilst the Netherlands, Germany and a couple of early versions, including the USA, adopted broadly the same look and theme tune, there were also significant early departures including Spain and Italy having their own shared look and theme (which still stands up 20 years on) and of course the UK and then Australia, and ultimately the second series of BBUSA, getting their own distinct looks.

It was one thing which made following BB internationally quite interesting in the early years - each version truly looked different.
 
Brekkie said:
Anyhow, back to BB Aus and didn't they have a Friday night show in BB3 - "The Insider", which I guess now may have been a response to not having the Saturday night show in BB2. Not sure if it even lasted the series though.

Gretel also way more prominent a host than those in the other English language versions at least who only turned up once a week hosting Uncut as well. IIRC they didn't have the seperate nominations show initially though - when did that come in?
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For the first season Nominations was included in the Daily show. It was from the beginning of the second season when they had a 40 min+ separate Nominations show hosted by Gretel.

“The Insider” was only on for the third season (2003) and it did run every Friday night for the whole season.
 
Zcsund1234 said:
For what it's worth week 3 and 4 of BB2 are semi enjoyable. I am not laughing like I was in 2001, but thanks to Katrina and Aaron's obsession with their respective weekly tasks there was some drama introduced.
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Was one of them the ‘Looming’ task? Iirc there was some story about how people wanted to try it out after that task aired and there were some kits with ‘as seen on Big Brother’ marketed at the time.

I remember Katrina having a meltdown and being told her goldfish had passed. And Aaron had an sensitivity/aversion or something to Incense, cue Rove bringing some out live on air during his interview after being evicted.
 
Afflllate said:
Was one of them the ‘Looming’ task? Iirc there was some story about how people wanted to try it out after that task aired and there were some kits with ‘as seen on Big Brother’ marketed at the time.

I remember Katrina having a meltdown and being told her goldfish had passed. And Aaron had an sensitivity/aversion or something to Incense, cue Rove bringing some out live on air during his interview after being evicted.
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Yes it was the task where they had to loom a huge rug and Katrina was very fixated with the task and stayed awake for 34 hours doing it. Same time her goldfishes passed away and she cried in the diary room and fans speculated it was code much like Dawn in BBUK7. The incense thing was briefly shown but I kinda tuned out of it, I mainly focused on his argument with Shannon and Alex and leaving the bedroom to go toilet whilst they were to remain there because of the spa being revealed. Aaron was also pretty bossy with the surf life saving task, but what has annoyed me most is his sanctimonious attitude towards Jess and and Marty. He appeared to me as very self righteous individual who preaches honesty, integrity and morality. Much like many sportsmen who go on Survivor.
 
I had a lazy day today and was able to smash through weeks 4 and 5 today of 2002. The sooner I finish it the sooner I can progress to the faster paced seasons, and I am also looking forward to rewatching Reggie. I will say I have enjoyed this rewatch more than I anticipated at all. Not to say it's an amazing season. There is a decent amount of drama in the beginning and middle but the main catalysts for that go immediately as the story line starts which further enhances my dislike of the vote to evict format. Jessica and Nathan are my main enjoyment of this. Peter is so horribly boring I do not enjoy him at all, a lot of the others are just there like Sahra, Mirabai, Shannon and Alex, and SO MUCH focus on Turkan and her wanting to leave. So much so the day 31 episode was extended to an hour (too bad for those who wanted to watch the Simpsons, that actually reminded me of when I used to watch the Simpsons on Channel 10 during dinner times so that was some fun unintended nostalgia). I am beyond baffled how Turkan survived and Shannon was evicted? I get why Mirabai, Peter and Alex all avoided being evicted as they weren't big enough characters to attract votes. But Shannon? what did she do? is there something that happened that didn't make the edit? I am going to assume the public felt sympathy for Turkan and Shannon like Lisa in BB1 was just collateral for that week. I get she was opinionated but she barely had that shown in more than 2 scenes and it was very tame in comparison to others. The three intruders I wanted to go in went in, although Hayley seemed like she had some intrigue. The main story line of the season is split in two parts; the first being the couples in the house consisting of Jess and Marty, Turkan and Peter as well as Mirabai and Damian and then Brodie. And the second part being Turkan wanting to leave. It's funny how this cast is so active with sexual activity compared to 2001. 2001 had a very sexual cast in terms of conversations (thank you Sara-Marie for carrying this) whilst the 2002 cast were a lot more active with relationships with the house. Now in my head I would expect a cast of a second series to go one of two ways, one; seeing previously how well being in a pair worked for Christina and I guess Peter so they may have tried to replicate it, or two; seeing how everything is so heavily shown on the program that you'd be too conscious to do anything in fear of it being shown. However being in your twenties and drinking alcohol throws any of those thoughts right out the window anyway so what even is the point of me thinking that lol. The cast doesn't bounce off each other as well as the first series did and they all seem to dislike each other for the most part? Well thats what the edited shows seem to give off. I found the beginning task of them needing to paint and earn furniture so unnecessary and not even remotely interesting. Maybe because I'm watching 20 years later and theres been more exciting stuff shown on these shows before and maybe this was considered fun at the time? I think what makes this harder to watch than any other series is that the use of the same house as 2001 makes it so easy to compare the two seasons. When the house is different the show feels different which gives the cast a sense of individuality. Those are my generic thoughts so far, the biggest pro I have for it is the use of a nominations show where we get to see Gretel more. She really feels comfortable with the role and you can sense it. I will also quickly add week 5 did feel tedious to watch with the added intruder special and extended daily show.
 
I do think when you rewatch seasons the quieter ones often stand up better than you expect.
 
I remember that night they devoted the extended episode to Turkan in the DR will she or won’t she walk, wasn’t it funnily enough the same night the Intruders went in? Great timing for the ratings.

Rewatched a bit of the beginning of Aaron’s eviction, it was (and also the following week with Shannon) the first time I think that there was a tie in the levels of nominations to give 5 nominees. (I used to write out along at home and tally the nominations live in the earlier seasons, I found it interesting how they did the cut off for the 3 ‘slots’ to determine that weeks nominees).

Later it was also the first time they had a Double Eviction. Turkan was up every single week until she was evicted, so yeah I think some section of the public felt for her but also then maybe decided enough was enough when she started to seriously talk to BB about wanting to leave.

She was also one of the oldest housemates that year (at 30! Only Shannon was older at 31 I think) and also wasn’t she having issues with Peter? I recall at the time someone describing it as a unique situation having a showmance because ‘If things go south, you don’t have the luxury of getting away from the person to have some alone time’ I remember weren’t they constantly having conversations about it away from the other housemates?

On the other side of the coin having Brodie up against Jess and Marty proved too much for the voting public to split them, whereas it did go the other way years later when Katie and Jamie BB06 where split up with a third nominee iirc.

Also when I did a sporcle ‘name all the BBAU housemates’ quiz a little while back, Alex was one I had a blank on in the moment (and I have a good handle on trivia like this haha). He’s one of those housemates that stayed like 5+ weeks but I don’t really remember him being part of any big particular house or story moments (he was part of the first Double Eviction of BBAU). It’d be good to rewatch to see if he was really that under the radar or not in the edit.
 
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Zcsund1234 said:
the biggest pro I have for it is the use of a nominations show where we get to see Gretel more. She really feels comfortable with the role and you can sense it.
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This was something that really stood out in S1 as it progressed. Gretel relaxed into her role and obviously really enjoyed herself (particularly flirting with all the young guys lol). I think it was a fun gig for her, and she was genuinely interested in the whole concept. Compare that to later where she was getting jaded and quite snippy at times.

PS: paragraphs plzzzz!
 
Brekkie said:
I do think when you rewatch seasons the quieter ones often stand up better than you expect.
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If you mean in terms of housemates? Yes I’d agree. Ben wasn’t completely boring in BB1. And I will also admit after watching channel 7’s version I have glorified channel ten’s editing of their Daily shows and airtime distribution. When I’m reality it’s isn’t amazing. Shannon, Sahra, Alex and even marty apart from Jess hardly get shown at all. Mirabai is more prominent than I recall. Pete’s also been a decently shown person due to the turkan storyline. But this is by no means amazing airtime distribution. Shannon was evicted without getting much content at all.
 
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