The Big Brother Performance Review

[Tim]

Some final thoughts:

• Production are too obsessed with controlling all situations, they don't seem to be interested in organic footage. It gives the show that overly-manufactured feeling. BB Grand Hotel was promising but later flopped because production got scared they couldn't control the outcome.
  
  
• Daily shows have no continuity - feels like a clip show of random events stitched together. The only multi-episode story arcs have been the manufactured showmances.
  
  
• Daily shows ended up with too much filler or repetitive segments: HMs waking up was boring. Shopping ended up being the same shit every time.
  
  
• Housemate casting was bad. All the men were ultimately the same guy duplicated. Production decided early that Colin would be their hero but he ended up poisoning the house. I cannot exaggerate how much the final 10 days of the live stream have been focused on farting. Colin really does fart every few minutes and it dominates conversation in the house. It makes the other boys feel free to also fart all the time. Fart talk always causes the stream to be muted, making it unwatchable at times.
  
  
• HMs are constantly reminded that they are on a show, which reduces the amount of genuine footage we see of them. The visible cameras don't help. But I think the biggest problem is how often they are called to the diary room to film narrative cutaways. It happens many times each day, and the HMs come to expect it and know when it will happen.
  
  
• HMs go for too long periods with nothing to do, causing them to become lazy and lethargic all the time. Saturday rest day is especially bad for this and production really gave up in the final days. There are so many free / cheap things that production could do to solve this:
  
  • Housemates paint portraits of each other
  • A task where housemates must only communicate through song
  • Pyschological games. Steal what BBUK do: Put a big red button in the house that says DO NOT PUSH. You will get at least 30 minutes of interesting footage of HMs debating whether to push the button. Leave a letter that says "Big Brother will lie to you twice this week" etc.
    
• The live shows improved over time but I found them largely pointless because the evictees basically don't get an interview. They are just bookends to the daily show footage.
  
  
• Dreamworld interferes with the show too much. I feel like they got the better side of this deal. So much of the daily show is eaten up by drone footage of the park which must have been a condition of the contract. Riders yelling things into the backyard became a big problem by the end - both because it was revealing things to the housemates, but also because the housemates just loved to sit in the backyard and do nothing but listen to them being glazed.
  
  
• The livestream ended up being way better than I expected. I expected way more cutting of the stream for big events, but yeah the non stop fart talk poisoned a lot of it.

 

[Tim]

On the topic of that feeling that production already planned out all the events and relationships that would happen in the house...

Live stream Post in thread 'Day 29 Live Stream - 7/12/2025'

Sunday at 1:06 PM

1:04pm - Housemates talk about how Big Brother might prank them today by saying there's still another week to go.

They all repeat that Big Brother frequently says to them in the diary room "a reminder that everything has been planned well in advance".

• Tim

 

[Mela]

I'll try to be reasonable but also I can't help but compare with BBUK which has also gone through 3 reboots across 3 different channels.

• Lead up / format: They tried to have it both ways with promoting "OG Big Brother is returning" but the show still ending up pretty close to Channel 7 / MAFS / Love Island. When you try to have things both ways like this you end up with a watered down product - it's better to just be one or the other. Obviously the die hard fans have been annoyed. I feel like the casual viewers from OG days will slowly drop (see the Tiktok video above), leaving the young viewers to stick around who don't know any different.
  
  
• Daily show: I don't mind the diary room cutaways and I think this is a good way to give BBAU its own identity. But there's a pacing problem. As far as I know BBUK and AU now have the same episode runtime (for regular daily shows). But BBAU feels incredibly rushed and exhausting. BBUK is able to give events so much more room to breathe and play out. I suspect Ten is cramming more advertising into the show than ITV. I feel like I also saw more storylines in the 30 minute Ten days.
  
  The clicky/boppy transition clips are too long and repetitive, they are already annoying. They should have just copied BBUK directly on this - reasonably fast transitions zoomed in on something new from the house each time. It doesn't eat up air time and keeps some visual variety.
  
  
• Live shows: Rough and janky. The crew seem inexperienced: lots of timing issues, audio mixing was a problem early on. The eviction stage is Temu BBUK and looks cheap in daylight. I get it - scale and budget is so much smaller in Australia but yeah it looks cheap. As others have said, Mel is a good host let down by low production values.
  
  
• House: It is what it is. BBAU has never been known for having signature houses (except for the huge backyards by international standards). They have obviously taken cues from BBUK and it's fine.
  
  
• Housemates: They cast 5.5 very blokey straight men (Conor mimics the others in group situations). This is almost half the house. As we've seen on so many BBAU seasons (and also BBUK 2024)... when you have more than 2 blokey men they just dominate every aspect of the house. They form a pack and collectively kick and/or bully out the other housemates. They cause the daily show storylines to be dominated by which hot chick they wanna fuck. The entire storyline for the first two weeks has been Colin and Holly hooking up, and now Coco and Bruce hooking up. Yawn.
  
  
• Creative direction: One thing I have always admired about BBUK is a strong creative direction (most seasons). For example, this year the house was eyeball themed. The opening credits featured eyeballs, the house was decorated with eyeballs, the housemates had a purchasing currency called Eyes, there were tubes across the house where Eyes could be dispensed by BB which formed part of various tasks. All very cohesive and put together.
  
  In comparison, BBAU so far feels like grab-bag of ideas with nothing connecting them together. For example, the last supper where Jane, Holly and Michael had to dress as clowns. Why clowns? If this was a last supper like BB announced, wouldn't robes have been more fitting? The room was decorated to look like the last supper chambers! But clowns? It felt like no one had paused for a moment to flesh this choice out. Instead, some one plucked these cheap ass clown costumes from a $2 store and said "this'll do".

Some analysis on all of this:
I'm especially disappointed with the casting because it shows Ten haven't moved on from the BBAU 2003-2007 template of young people with hot bods. And since the show is being pushed to have Love Island / MAFS elements, I can only conclude that this is simply the state of Australian FTA television now. Mostly junk food TV, copying each other and doing it on the cheap. The viewers who like this will stay on FTA and the others have so much more choice to go elsewhere. I hadn't watched FTA in years before this, so I find it jarring.

I wanna be kind and say that this is probably being influenced by Ten executives being super risk averse, but really who knows.

I have a lot of friends who work in the creative arts (not only TV) and there's a common theme of needing to leave Australia to further your career because Australia is rigid, afraid of new things, and there's a huge talent drain away to the US and UK. Honestly, I see the effects of this in the current season of BBAU. They are likely doing their best but it's feeling derivative and the staff seem inexperienced.

I wouldn't be super interested in the show if it wasn't for the live stream.

Agree
On a side note, my sister works in film production (even worked on Celeb BB) & moved to the UK to forge a career about 25 years ago. She did very well very quickly.

 

[Mela]

Some final thoughts:

• Production are too obsessed with controlling all situations, they don't seem to be interested in organic footage. It gives the show that overly-manufactured feeling. BB Grand Hotel was promising but later flopped because production got scared they couldn't control the outcome.
  
  
• Daily shows have no continuity - feels like a clip show of random events stitched together. The only multi-episode story arcs have been the manufactured showmances.
  
  
• Daily shows ended up with too much filler or repetitive segments: HMs waking up was boring. Shopping ended up being the same shit every time.
  
  
• Housemate casting was bad. All the men were ultimately the same guy duplicated. Production decided early that Colin would be their hero but he ended up poisoning the house. I cannot exaggerate how much the final 10 days of the live stream have been focused on farting. Colin really does fart every few minutes and it dominates conversation in the house. It makes the other boys feel free to also fart all the time. Fart talk always causes the stream to be muted, making it unwatchable at times.
  
  
• HMs are constantly reminded that they are on a show, which reduces the amount of genuine footage we see of them. The visible cameras don't help. But I think the biggest problem is how often they are called to the diary room to film narrative cutaways. It happens many times each day, and the HMs come to expect it and know when it will happen.
  
  
• HMs go for too long periods with nothing to do, causing them to become lazy and lethargic all the time. Saturday rest day is especially bad for this and production really gave up in the final days. There are so many free / cheap things that production could do to solve this:
  • Housemates paint portraits of each other
  • A task where housemates must only communicate through song
  • Pyschological games. Steal what BBUK do: Put a big red button in the house that says DO NOT PUSH. You will get at least 30 minutes of interesting footage of HMs debating whether to push the button. Leave a letter that says "Big Brother will lie to you twice this week" etc.
• The live shows improved over time but I found them largely pointless because the evictees basically don't get an interview. They are just bookends to the daily show footage.
  
  
• Dreamworld interferes with the show too much. I feel like they got the better side of this deal. So much of the daily show is eaten up by drone footage of the park which must have been a condition of the contract. Riders yelling things into the backyard became a big problem by the end - both because it was revealing things to the housemates, but also because the housemates just loved to sit in the backyard and do nothing but listen to them being glazed.
  
  
• The livestream ended up being way better than I expected. I expected way more cutting of the stream for big events, but yeah the non stop fart talk poisoned a lot of it.

LOVE this. Only sentiment I disagree with is that livestream was well done. Nope. It had a lot of potential but imo it's been a massive flop. Livestream should be LIVE, not edited on the spot... goldfish, laundry goods, muting, swift change to other convos happening elsewhere, indulging faux romances, ....WORST OF ALL they all went to bed early & at the same time. I suspect BB imposed this. Honestly I've never met anyone who goes to sleep at 5:30pm (Qld time) on a Saturday 'night'. Wot??!!!!

 

[Mela]

LOVE this. Only sentiment I disagree with is that livestream was well done. Nope. It had a lot of potential but imo it's been a massive flop. Livestream should be LIVE, not edited on the spot... goldfish, laundry goods, muting, swift change to other convos happening elsewhere, indulging faux romances, ....WORST OF ALL they all went to bed early & at the same time. I suspect BB imposed this. Honestly I've never met anyone who goes to sleep at 5:30pm (Qld time) on a Saturday 'night'. Wot??!!!!

You read my thoughts on the casting, too much time wasted doing nothing (your suggestions for down-time tasks are brilliant) & blatent promotion of Dreamworld.

 

[UnderTheRadar]

Well, I'd been thinking this was what I'd end up doing, but I figured I'd wait until the finale to make my final decision, but I've downgraded my rating from a 3 to a 1.

The producer meddling in any which way they could was too much. They simply refused to let anything play out organically, which made things so annoying to watch. It all came across as so contrived and directed, whether it be on the live stream or the daily shows, and it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

Speaking of the live stream, don't treat your viewers like idiots and have some faith in us. There's no need to cover up major events (like Abiola taking the money and leaving, or Vinnie and Ed's snap evictions) with Hisense cam and then use all these stupid dodgy camera angles in an attempt to hide who left. It's obvious who it was. And people are going to still tune in to the daily shows even if you do show it on stream.

Scrap TikTok streaming. Too much extra muting had to happen because of the strict broadcast guidelines they have. I'm sure a lot of us would be more than willing to pay for an ad-free service where there wasn't so much muting (I know certain things would still have to be muted) and maybe even the ability to choose which camera we're viewing. I appreciate that they brought back the live stream, and it was definitely a step in the right direction, but it could be so much better.

The live shows were awful. They were just so poorly done. They need to hire someone on the production team with more experience on running live shows, because they were not at all enjoyable to watch. And please put a roof over the stage! Two shows (the launch and the double eviction with Jane and Mia) were both rained out because there was no roof. Mel had to host FROM THE FRONT DOOR OF THE HOUSE for the eviction, because it was live and the show had to somehow go on. I know it's not a great venue, but even The Dreamworld Theatre, where it would appear from Mel's IG stories is where they rehearse, would have been a better option than what they used.

The daily shows were way too overly edited and showed very little of substance. There was always way too much a focus on the showmances (first Holly and Colin, and then Bruce and Coco once Holly had left). Most of us aren't interested in watching Temu Love Island. We're here to watch.... checks notes.... BIG BROTHER! Daily shows were an hour, and yet I feel that the 30-minute daily shows from the OG 10 era captured more and did a better job of showing what went on in the house than these hour long shows did.

As for the host, I felt Mel started out well, and you could tell she loves the show, but as the weeks went on, she was getting worse. I don't know whether it just wasn't what she was sold when offered the hosting gig, or if production were getting in her ear forcing her to stick to the script more rather than going rogue, but she was coming across more stiff as time went on, and it made the already pretty piss poor live shows even worse.

Big Brother needs to be less buddy buddy with the housemates and actually be an authority figure. Get tougher with the punishments, don't accept a housemate calling him brev, brevski or some other ridiculous variant. I can't help but wonder if it would have been the same if the contractual negotiations with Leon didn't hit the fan and Leon stayed on as the voice of BB. Punishments need to be stricter for not wearing microphones, for discussing nominations and for other rule breaks. Fines off the prize money, fines off the shopping budget, other punishments in some form of punishment room, STRIKES! And they need to be shown on the daily shows. BB was an absolute fucking pushover, and it was pathetic to watch from the beginning.

The cast. Oh my fucking god the cast. This needs to be completely overhauled. If we're just going to have a bunch of farters, two-faced backstabbers and food stashers again, count me the fuck out for 2026.

I know this is just a huge stream of consciousness, but I promised myself I'd do my final review and write-up after the finale ended, so that's what I'm doing. We were sold something completely different to what we were delivered, and the whole thing just feels like a bitter disappointment. Though I don't hold high hopes for improvements. From the quotes from people at the network I've read in different articles online, they're convinced they've done a great job and have delivered what they said they would. So that should be all we need to hear to know that they have no intention of making improvements next year.

 

[testok5197]

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.

My take as a first-time BB viewer this season:
What pulled me in was the livestream then watching the daily episodes to see how they edited everything together. And after that, I stuck with the show right through to the end.

The good:
• Episodes six nights a week kept things moving and even if its a filler ep. I know what happened in the BB House that day.
• The Big Brother voice was great. Mike Goldman should stay as the voice of BB
• The BB Hotel drama was actually really entertaining.
• And the house design colourful and fun. was one of the highlights. And they should fix it up like the roof, remove cameras, and rent it out as a house. I would pay to stay in that house. I can see it being used in group stays. I know l would stay there if l had the choice.


From a programming perspective Six episodes a week is great for fans, but it can overwhelm casual viewers. A smoother setup would be four prime-time episodes (Mon–Thu, 7:30pm), with the other two shifted to 8:30pm on Fri and Sat after shows like HYBPA or Gogglebox.


Where it could improve:
• A lot of episodes felt more like a dating show. What draws me to Big Brother apart from the stream is the whole concept: no internet, no apps, completely cut off from the outside world. Dating isn’t bad, it just shouldn’t overshadow everything else happening in the house.

[^And l see a lot of comparisons to the ch7 version. l never watched ch7 or any BB before this ch10 season so whats different to that and this season? Would love to know. ]

• I wish there were at least two livestreams covering different parts of the house. In the US they have four feeds — even when it’s the same event, you get multiple camera angles.

• They could take a page from ABC Australia with Extended versions of shows and release a Big Brother XL version with 10–15 minutes of extra content. Its will show the same stuff as the normal eps but with extended scenes/Context and some more funny moments.

Also the music. I dont think l need music to know its a sad moment. Dont stop using it. Just reduce the use of it a bit.

And l understand ch10 tested this season but its needs to be longer. Maybe 3-5months.
Overall, I enjoyed the season, but the livestream and daily show needs a few fixes. I would rated it good 7 out of 10.

 

[UnderTheRadar]

Oh, forgot about a couple of things

No more rest/flamingo days! BB is supposed to be 24/7, not 24/5, which is what this basically was. Flamingo went from Friday night through to Sunday just before the eviction. This is yet another thing taken from some other modern reality shows where they do have a non-filming day, but that shouldn't work for a show where the concept is "Big Brother is ALWAYS watching."

Cameras need to go back behind mirrors. Too much talking directly at cameras.

The house needs to either be moved to a location where they can't be spoken to from rides, or the Tail Spin needs to be out of action for the duration of the series.

 

[ProductionPlant]

This season pulled good ratings, but the show itself felt half-baked. Production were all over everything. You could tell when things were pushed, edited oddly, or flat-out manufactured. The daily shows felt stitched together instead of showing what actually happened. It’s hard to take the “social experiment” seriously when it’s this heavily managed. And the “off-days” thing… unbelievable.

Telling housemates not to talk about certain topics because it isn’t a filming day? That completely destroys the idea that the game never stops. It snaps the spell instantly. If you’re going to treat it like a part-time job, you may as well let them clock out and go home.

Mel is one of the few parts that works, and even she gets sidelined. She could carry proper live interactions, but instead she’s stuck throwing to endless pre-recorded packages. It kills the energy. Let her actually host the show. The house didn’t help either. It looked cheap and empty. BB houses used to feel like their own universe. This one felt like a temporary rental with coloured lights.

The livestream could have been a huge win, but the censorship killed it. Every time something interesting started, the feed cut out or muted. If they’re going to run a stream, at least offer a paid version that’s actually worth watching. People would pay for something real. What’s frustrating is that the audience is clearly still there. People want this show. But the production choices dragged it down. Stop interfering. Stop micromanaging. Let the house breathe. Let the thing actually be Big Brother. The format works when you get out of the way. Right now, they’re smothering it.