I think the format of BB08 was very bad with new hosts, people coming in and out constantly for the first few weeks, all the silly gimmicks like the hypnotist and Pamela Anderson, and the new voting format whereby the public nominated and the housemates voted each other off.
However once the show got about 5 weeks or so into the season they cut down on all these gimmicks, it did start to get pretty interesting. Almost all of them were awful people, but that actually made them quite fascinating to watch at times. The Nobbi and Travis spa incident, Bianca going nuts over the Mole task, Terrence v Brigette were all pretty compelling trash TV.
This seems to be an unpopular opinion on this site, but after the blandness of 2007 whereby almost all of the men except for Bodie and Zack were some of the most boring people they've ever had in any series (and a few of the women, though Emma, Aleisha, Laura, Daniela and Hayley were good housemates), 2008 being 'nasty' was actually a breath of fresh air to a degree. Of course I'd have preferred that a racist didn't win, but neither Rory or Ben deserved it either so....