I was expecting something a bit more familiar to what we had in the 2000s on Tens original run. Was never expecting it to be a carbon copy but also wasn't expecting Big Brother AU to be turned into some strange (albeit modern and over-done) hybrid of Channel 7 and ITV. Ten advertised a return to the original format and I think that's where many were left disappointed with this reboot as expectations were incorrectly set and/or intended.
Anyone who follows the show knows the old house burned down after it was left to decay and be ransacked, and they also knew the amphitheatre was demolished soon after. So that style was never coming back and nor were the visual cues from the promos and streams going to be duplicated.
My expectations weren't much given what they advertised to us. It seemed their intention was pretty simple. The promos were hyped up and popular for a reason. I've never enjoyed the "survivor in a house" format, or the "love island in a house" format. Those are all shows that have their purpose and are successful in their own way. Shows, at their core, were inspired by Big Brother originally. The way it was promoted in the run up I was led to believe we were getting something familiar and not as tampered with as other modern versions have been (cough, ITV). I was expecting the simple fly-on-the-wall doc style that most of us grew up with and watched. I wanted to see run of the mill people in Australia live together, argue together, laugh together and get assigned silly tasks that were designed to influence and stir the pot and allow the true personalities of housemates to peek through. I was excited to see the Big Brother character we all remember come back. That is what was advertised to us.
Instead, we were handed this carbon copy of a carbon copy. A plastic looking, slightly over polished reality show that copied exactly what it originally inspired instead of returning to what made it popular to begin with. It wasn't the fly-on-the-wall doc style Big Brother used to be. It was an amalgamation of everything else currently on TV, complete with forced narratives that the producers thought the audience would want to see, notwithstanding the horrendous backing tracks that modern, factory produced reality tv shows all use to try and steer the audience rather than letting us make up our own mind. It just didn't feel... real. I never once became invested in any particular person or (natural) storyline.
Big Brother should be there to provide viewers with the raw element of watching these human interactions as-is ("unfiltered" you could say, which was Ten's wording, not ours). Instead they're turning it into a show which we already have multiple iterations of across multiple channels and streaming networks. For Big Brother to work, imo, they need a modern but basic house. They need to be left to themselves and not be manipulated or produced or influenced by the outside world. Big Brother as a character needs to be there to crack his whip when needed and enforce the rules and structure of the show. To set a "theme" in the way of a task for a few days and let the housemates just do what they were cast to do. The housemates need not be aware of the cameras spinning and zooming in on them. I wanted the observational fish-bowl element rather than my screen yelling at me nightly touting what's next in this AMAZING AND TUMULTUOUS COLIN AND HOLLY STORY ADVENTURE! I mean, Mel's autocue script was the producers using her to pat themselves on the back for most of the live shows. Nothing felt organic and the produced material never really flowed.
If this is what networks and producers want Big Brother to be these days then they should adapt the format under a new name. It's been done already - look at shows like The Circle, and many others. Allow the Big Brother name and branding to die with dignity if you're not going to make the show as it was intended to be.
