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Davina hosts BBUK: Best Episodes Ever from 14 June

I have three thoughts after watching the episode... Still can’t stand Rylan. His fake enthusiasm gets more disingenuous every time I see it. I wonder how much Marcus paid for that rim job. The logo and graphics look extremely cheap.
 
Big Brother: Best Shows Ever brings ratings success to E4

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Big Brother: Best Shows Ever got off to a solid start in the ratings last night, immediately emerging as E4’s most-watched non-scripted show of 2020.

The first episode of the special retrospective series revisited the infamous Big Brother 1 showdown in which Craig Phillips exposed ‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman’s rule-breaking nominations plot.

Despite being a 20-year-old repeat, It was the highest-rating non-terrestrial programme on Sunday, attracting an overnight average of 660,000 viewers (3.7%) to Channel 4’s sister brand, including +1.

The figure is almost three times E4’s 9pm slot average (268,000/1.4%), and comfortably above the highest overnights the channel has recorded in recent weeks, which have come in at around 400-450,000.

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It is also just 25k short of the 685,000 who watched Channel 5’s final episode of Big Brother in November 2018 – even though E4 reaches less than half of C5’s audience share.

Meanwhile, 9.7% of 16 to 34-year-olds tuned in, a whopping 309% increase on the slot average – making E4 the second most popular channel in the key youth demographic at the time.

The impressive stats mean that Big Brother: Best Shows Ever is now E4’s highest-rating non-scripted programme of the year so far.

The remainder of the series will face stiff competition, however, as rival broadcaster ITV2 begins airing the first series of Love Island Australia in the 9pm slot tonight.

Commissioned to celebrate the show’s 20th birthday, Best Shows Ever is the first official Big Brother programming to air on the Channel 4 network in almost a decade.

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Each 75-minute instalment features a full classic ‘civilian’ or Celebrity episode of BBUK, remastered to improve picture quality, with those in 4:3 format remaining in their original aspect ratio.

For early series, which aired in shorter timeslots, multiple episodes have been joined together – although some scenes that “didn’t feel right for 2020” have been edited out.

Highlights in the first week include Nikki Grahame’s ‘Who is she?!’ rant, Ulrika Jonsson and Verne Troyer’s ‘Endless Love’ duet, and Jackie Stallone’s late arrival.

Big Brother: Best Shows Ever continues every night between Sunday-Thursday at 9pm on E4 until 25th June.
 
I can't believe they didn't edit Michael Barrymore's Hitler impression out of tonight's episode... It was in poor taste in 2007 and it's even worse now.
 
Was great reliving a BB7 episode - amazing how that classic "Who is She?" moment only happened because the diary room door wouldn't open to let her out. Indeed Nikki herself came very close to being evicted a few days earlier - she got 47% of the vote.

I do wish they'd extended them to 90 minutes though to include a bit of a build up and follow up to put the episode in context - tonight showing Susie being selected to go in and the crowd chanting "Get Grace Out" would set the episode nicely, and then Grace's eviction would show her behaviour was truly punished. Would have loved to have heard Davina's reaction to that too.


Next week then they've confirmed another CBB4 episode, which again is a great moment but adding a CBB7 episode too makes it far celeb heavier than it should be. I think BB2 (Paul and Helen's date night), BB5 (either Fight Night or the Wedding) and BB6 (Box Task or Makosi's Pregnancy, or the Spy Task) all deserve a slot, but as it appears from the preview BB3 and BB11 will get an outing it looks like two will miss out - and I'd have rather seen CBB6 and CBB7 dropped in favour of one of them.
 
I can't believe they didn't edit Michael Barrymore's Hitler impression out of tonight's episode... It was in poor taste in 2007 and it's even worse now.
Was really surprising considering how that sort of thing is a hot topic at the moment, plus they made a point of stating some scenes that didn't feel right in 2020 had been cut. I just couldn't watch that - cringy at best.
 
Was really surprising considering how that sort of thing is a hot topic at the moment, plus they made a point of stating some scenes that didn't feel right in 2020 had been cut. I just couldn't watch that - cringy at best.

Agreed... My impression of the episode was kind of ruined after that point. I understand why the episode was chosen but at the same time feel it was a bit bland... They could have easily picked the finale and it would have been WAY more exciting to watch and conveyed the same message.
 
Just watched the second ep. I loved that CBB/Chantelle season, a bunch of us from the Jokers Updates site all watched it. We also watched that ridiculous Space Cadets reality show around that time as well, good times.
 
Space Cadets was ace. Would actually be quite repeatable even now considering everyone is looking for content - better than MAFS anyway, which E4 have picked up to air once they're done with these episodes.
 
Space Cadets was ace. Would actually be quite repeatable even now considering everyone is looking for content - better than MAFS anyway, which E4 have picked up to air once they're done with these episodes.

I miss the old days of the BB pre-season lead in... Shattered was also a good Endemol produced mini series.
 
Yes, think it was the few years that C4 axed Celeb BB they threw other shows out in the slot.
 
Yes, think it was the few years that C4 axed Celeb BB they threw other shows out in the slot.

Shattered specifically did but Space Cadets was not... I was also making reference to the pre-series specials they’d air in the weeks leading to the series launch. I always felt that was a great way to drum up excitement for the new series... Often far better than any advertising they’d put out.
 
Tonight's episode is one that nobody would have chosen and from the reaction on Twitter I don't think many minds were changed, but it was enjoyable enough and really shouldn't have been a surprise considering they put both Coolio and Ulrika out of this series into Ultimate Big Brother.
 
Tonight's episode is one that nobody would have chosen and from the reaction on Twitter I don't think many minds were changed, but it was enjoyable enough and really shouldn't have been a surprise considering they put both Coolio and Ulrika out of this series into Ultimate Big Brother.

My feeling is that because CBB5 was such a rough experience for production (which, admittedly, they mostly brought upon themselves), and BB8/BB:CH were almost deliberately underwhelming to help ride out the storm, and BB9 tried things to regain the spotlight but never really succeeded, that the fact that Endless Love video went reasonably viral bolstered the crew's morale enormously. I can see why they'd still look fondly upon it.

And at least it wasn't the "Ulrika dresses the Indian from the Village People and pretends to be First Nations" episode.
 
My feeling is that because CBB5 was such a rough experience for production (which, admittedly, they mostly brought upon themselves), and BB8/BB:CH were almost deliberately underwhelming to help ride out the storm, and BB9 tried things to regain the spotlight but never really succeeded, that the fact that Endless Love video went reasonably viral bolstered the crew's morale enormously. I can see why they'd still look fondly upon it.

And at least it wasn't the "Ulrika dresses the Indian from the Village People and pretends to be First Nations" episode.

I don’t think anyone set out to produce a program post-race row that was intentionally underwhelming... I just think they struggled creatively trying to produce without causing unnecessary or manufactured drama. That should be fairly obvious considering the massive improvements that were made once they didn’t have to care anymore.
 
Jackie Stallone was better than I even remembered - just actually pure gold, as indeed were many of that cast. I'd forgotten Germaine Greer was in there.

The best thing about this episode though was they used Dermot throughout for additional comment. Just felt right.
 
No chance they picked any C5 episodes. Next weeks episodes:

Ep6 - 'Would You Like Me To Be The Cat?' (CBB4)
Ep7 - Jade In The Rich Poor Divide (BB3)
Ep8 - The Tree Of Temptation (CBB7)
Ep9 - The Boxes Task (BB6)
Ep10 - The Blinking Brilliant One (BB2)


Most fans agree a BB5 one should have been included, either instead of CBB6 or CBB7 or the second CBB4 episode. I'd have rather have seen the Tree of Temptation as featured in BB11, with a much better cast, than CBB7 too.
 
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