The Big Brother Performance Review

Rate Big Brother's performance out of 10.

  • 10

    Votes: 6 4.3%

  • 9

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 8

    Votes: 19 13.5%

  • 7

    Votes: 27 19.1%

  • 6

    Votes: 35 24.8%

  • 5

    Votes: 16 11.3%

  • 4

    Votes: 14 9.9%

  • 3

    Votes: 11 7.8%

  • 2

    Votes: 6 4.3%

  • 1

    Votes: 7 5.0%
  • Total voters
    141
mistercat122 said:
Just wish the livestream didn't cut away all the time or become muted and was just pure 247 streaming
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The livestreams will never be pure 24/7. They’re always going to cut away if content is not suitable for broadcast, if they’re talking about people not involved in the show, referencing/singing copyrighted material, or even if they’re also slandering people who aren’t involved.

The frustrating thing about the livestream is the persistent censoring of stuff that’s a major highlight for the following daily show. Honestly, I can see them considering canceling the livestream based on the feedback it’s been getting lately. The strongest aspect of this reboot is also its achilles heel.

Personally, as many already know, I think a further attempt at aligning with the original format is needed. It can be modernised and still stay true to its roots. Much of the content is there but it’s just prioritised and assembled extremely poorly in the edit. 60 minute episodes should be more than enough to give a concise breakdown of the previous day without having to stick to one or two specific character arcs or narratives. The producers have made it obvious they do not trust the format or the audience.
 
Character said:
One of the major things I have noticed, is that the cast is not very playful. Other casts were doing all sorts of things to keep themselves entertained, this house will only do things when they are prompted. I am not sure if it is the result of a generation raised on social media and tv, or something else.
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Young people not knowing how to entertain themselves without the internet (stuff they have seen on the internet) might play into it, but I'd say that one of the bigger issues is that people are somewhat trained to only do things when they are prompted.

I think it's a general issue with Big Brother these days, but it's especially true with Big Brother Australia. They tell them outright to stay bored on weekends, people have to somewhat hide so the eviction is not spoiled despite people knowing the results and from Big Brother's interaction inside and outside the diary room, you could probably also tell if something gets used on TV or not. Add to this the fact that Dreamworld provides the planes to fly over the Big Brother house and thus giving housemates something to do when they are bored.... and you can imho easily see how people are trained to only do stuff when prompted.

The flamingo thing alone ruins so much. Of course people will get the hint and only do things when you want them to do things, when you tell them so.
 
jessy_girl said:
I don’t care how dramatic this sounds but when I think of the pre-season marketing and the build up it just makes me feel so disappointed and sad and even angry that this is what we were served up. It’s absolutely crap.
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Well said.
I agree completely.

All they had to do was listen to the fans but nope they get these stupid producers to give us absolute crap.

If any producers ever read this i hope they know that the did an awful job
 
BBman said:
How they got jobs on bb is beyond me because clearly they are not competent.
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Might sound super rude, but that's probably why they got the jobs.. we all love Big Brother. The people that have done the marketing in the run-up of the current season love Big Brother. But not everyone loves Big Brother.

One of the most mind-boggling things I've experienced over the last couple of years was when Germany brought back their civilian version. They had press conferences and had higher-ups there. They all claimed that they were very excited for Big Brother to be back, but none of them, absolutely none of them could explain why anyone should tune in. You could tell that none of them watched any recent series and that none of them will tune in for the live feed. All they had on their mind was: Big Brother = big brand = big success. But it's not that easy.. and it was not a big success.

I expect it to be a similar situation in Australia. I doubt that everyone that works on the show has a passion for the show and that includes 10. I don't buy that they are unhappy with the product that they get delivered. They have their own exec on the show. If they are unhappy, she would speak up. But she's not. If 10 was unhappy, we would have seen changes.

I get that Big Brother at this point of the timeline was not the most prestigious show and that people who can pick their place of work, might not have considered it. But you can't explain everything with budget and inexperience. I accept it as a reason for the house falling apart. I accept it as a reason why they can't mix audio properly. But you can't use it for everything.

Let's take the weekend flamingos. Of course, you can argue with budget restraints and only a small crew being on site. So what? Somebody is watching over the housemates to tell them not to say anything exciting. Instead of talking to the house, they could just write down a note and the next day somebody could consider if they gonna clip it for the daily show or not. You don't even need somebody writing it down. This place here is taking all the notes. And if you miss a part, you can always have housemates recap it in the diary room. That wouldn't be great and a last resort, but still better than what they do.

They showed before that they can take on feedback. But then they revert decisions and go in a different direction. The decision to have a "random caller" evict one of the housemates is not a decision made by some intern or somebody who wouldn't get a job on a different show. It was made by people that worked on this very show before and then worked on other shows.

Harsh truth is in my eyes that many on the show are lacking the passion for the format. Their goal is to make it across the finishing line and are excited when they actually make it across. They wouldn't care if they lost a leg along the way. And that's what you see everyday. Part of it, I do understand. That's how the industry works. But at the same time, sprinkling a bit love and passion on it, will neither ruin the show nor the budget.
 
I'm probably willing to go back up to a 6 now - so much to fix but the foundations are there to build upon and most the fixes are quite simple. They've done alot wrong but having the live feed and 6 shows a week are real plusses. Main points of improvement are the editing, the live shows and the series length.
 
Brekkie said:
I'm probably willing to go back up to a 6 now - so much to fix but the foundations are there to build upon and most the fixes are quite simple. They've done alot wrong but having the live feed and 6 shows a week are real plusses. Main points of improvement are the editing, the live shows and the series length.
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Very interesting. I think the editing has remained at or below passing. Keeping in mind that they have less housemates to consider for each edit. I'm not convinced they're going to actively make productive changes for next year.
 
dasnico said:
Very interesting. I think the editing has remained at or below passing. Keeping in mind that they have less housemates to consider for each edit. I'm not convinced they're going to actively make productive changes for next year.
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I’m going to do a whole post about my review of the season but I think in 2025 we were naive to think that there wouldn’t be music under scores, manufactured romances etc.
The rawness that it should be just won’t happen anymore because networks are so used to having content that is “glossy” or structured that they can PR about and control.
I must say the editing has gone up and down. The presence of the music is a lot less than it was, but then in some eps it creeps bank in.
The overuse of Dreamworld attractions and scenery throguht the episode is the one thing that I don’t want as much of next year. Their contract needs to be reviewed. It takes away from the BB brand and almost makes it like a Dreamworld doco.
We also don’t need the “wake up” scene at the start of each episode either. Waste of time and its filler content and irrelevant. Replace it with proper opening title sequence and a full run of the theme song.
I’ll do more of a post on some stuff later. The editing isn’t perfect and some are bad. Though some are quite good despite the items above.
I wonder if cutting edge are involved this year? If not we can see why.
 
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So my take away is this season was a mess production wise as they are using it to trial a lot of things to see what works and hopefully next year they have a longer season, more money and can attract better staff. At least that is what I'm telling myself 🤣🤣
 
matts bb said:
I’m going to do a whole post about my review of the season but I think in 2025 we were naive to think that there wouldn’t be music under scores, manufactured romances etc.
The rawness that it should be just won’t happen anymore because networks are so used to having content that is “glossy” or structured that they can PR about and control.
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If you’re correct that makes me a bit sad. It shows the producers don’t trust the format, which worked for many many seasons. I see it as them treating the audience as dumbasses.

Absolutely nothing separating it from the other run of the mill reality shows that Big Brother originally inspired. IMO, they might as well have continued to develop on the borrowed US format that 7 poorly tried to execute (yes I said it). At least then these types of narratives and glossy editing styles would fit the bill and expectations would be low. Not to mention hm’s discussing noms etc. If they’re enforcing those rules then it’s weird they aren’t being shown. It feels like it’s missing its soul right now.

Do it right or leave the format alone to collect dust on the shelf until another network hopefully wants to bring it back properly.

Looking forward to your review and feedback btw.
 
Shennanigans said:
I have been thinking that back in the OG days, social media was not really a big thing.We had to pay for the live streaming, which I did not mind doing, and I rather that and get true 24/7. I think social media has spoiled many things we used to enjoy and BB seems to be a victim of this also.
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Ten is probably using the livestream as a loss leader to hook in a whole new generation of fans.
 
Brekkie said:
I'm probably willing to go back up to a 6 now - so much to fix but the foundations are there to build upon and most the fixes are quite simple. They've done alot wrong but having the live feed and 6 shows a week are real plusses. Main points of improvement are the editing, the live shows and the series length.
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I think I feel the same way. At least channel 10 has done everything right themselves 6 episodes a week + live stream as you say. You are right, there is a strong foundation that needs tweaking. I'm hopeful they have some major discussions but we'll see eventually, I am praying that TEN aren't impressed with the their promise in the advertisements about returning to the OG days being broken.

But TEN are also desperate enough for these numbers again so who even knows. In retrospect however maybe endemol shine were the true villains to blame for the disaster on channel 7. That network did fail us with the lack of episodes but the production values this year feel so much the same as they did in the previous few seasons that it feels like this is what BB will look like now.

@Endemol and @channel10 this show does not need to be polished looking like Love Island and MAFS!
 
matts bb said:
but I think in 2025 we were naive to think that there wouldn’t be music under scores, manufactured romances etc.
The rawness that it should be just won’t happen anymore because networks are so used to having content that is “glossy” or structured that they can PR about and control.
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I think it has always been way more likely that the 10 version would feature music. Even if we take aside that it's what they do on other shows, it's what they do on almost all BBs around the world. There is nobody inside production that would advocate for a more raw approach.

And while I would have been more surprised by the lack of music, I don't think it was naive to expect a show without music. OG was the marketing. Unfiltered was used in their main tag line for the reboot. Putting music over it, is putting a filter over it. If anything, it was naive to think that they would define OG as just "it airs live and viewers evict".

There is also one big reason why I wouldn't use the word naive here: They are doing a very terrible job with how they use music. Even if you accept that footage won't be 100% unfiltered anymore, it's badly done. I want to throw in BBUS as a comparison. It's far from being the best edited show. The cartoony sound effect they sometimes use are embarassing. I think they use more music than BBAU does, but at least I as a hearing impaired person have to listen closely to hear the music playing over the whole segment. It usually only gets louder when you transition to the next scene. And it's used in a non-manipulative way. And for the very least, that's something that you could expect from a show that wants to be the original social experiment. (And I would still point out that a lot of podcasts, documentaries, true crime stuff, etc... is able to do well without using underscores like BBAU does. Majority is not always right.)

And it's most definitely not naive to expect manufactured romances. That's the one thing that many (not all) BBs around the world can still do nicely: being able to tell a story without needing to fit everything into their own vision of the story. Looking at BBUS again, I don't even think it is doing the show any favors. They try and want to do the Survivor thing where they have a winner's edit all season long, but obviously don't know the winner and have to guess. It works in some years, in other years it doesn't (with BB17 possibly being the most evident case for them not being able to handle things outside their control).

BBAU has it a bit easier in that regards, since the outcome is based on the edit (whereas in the US, the edit hardly affects the outcome), but it will still do damage to the brand. One of the worst things that happened to the 7 version was housemates telling us all the things that we didn't see on the show. It's something you don't get away with long term. And I don't think 10 will get away with it in the long term.

No viewer should come to accept the editing. Those manufactured romances and the edit around these romances is anyhting but "unscripted. unfiltered. unmissable". Don't do Big Brother if you don't want to or can't do Big Brother. Call it "Dreamworld House" and you can do the fuck you want to do with it. I mean, I'll begrudgingly take the music if they get the edit (and thus their general approach to the show) right next year.
 
Raw emotion should come with the raw footage. The music should be left for the fun packages and montages where it can assist in slicing together footage.

I think a big problem, probably due to licencing issues, is the music is very much 80s soap opera rather than an epic soundtrack which can really lift the show (such as The Traitors UK).
 
Brekkie said:
Raw emotion should come with the raw footage. The music should be left for the fun packages and montages where it can assist in slicing together footage.

I think a big problem, probably due to licencing issues, is the music is very much 80s soap opera rather than an epic soundtrack which can really lift the show (such as The Traitors UK).
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Really shits me when they use that sugar plum fairy kind of shit for them sneaking about and stuff. Seven started with that and it can fuck right off please.
 
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