Sonja is doing a very competent job, fronting a very tough gig (In shows like 'Dancing With the Stars', it is usually the judges that get all the heat, not the announcer). She is a safe pair of hands.
Still, I miss Gretel. With Gretel there was the impression that she could turn on a contestant at any minute, that (to quote Douglas Adams) "If she was fairly to be compared to a battleaxe it would only be to an exquisitely crafted, beautifully balanced battleaxe, with an elegant minimum of fine engraving which stopped just short of its gleaming razored edge"
I'm not sure Sonja would represent BBAu so well in an unexpected situation with Merlin, or Micheal - but then, there is to be no live suprise, no invasion of reality, in this incarnation of BB.
Also, I am shocked to discover Sonja is younger than Gretel. She looks older, in a Joan Rivers kind of way. Still, she is preventing me missing Gretel half as much as I thought I would, which is quite a trick to pull off.
The fake smile is what every announcer is obliged to do while the cameras change angles or go to edited footage. It is not her fault they take forever, and it is to her credit that she stays grinning like a loon rather than looking like something has gone wrong in the editing room, or acting like the camera is no longer live.