What were you expecting from Channel 10's 2025 OG reboot of Big Brother Australia?

Now you have had a week's cooling off period, how do you feel now that BBAU 2025 is done and dusted?

  • I feel GREAT - I got a long-overdue dose of OG Big Brother

    Votes: 3 20.0%

  • I feel AWFUL - Ten's Big Brother revival was anything but OG

    Votes: 7 46.7%

  • I have MIXED feelings - Please explain in more detail below

    Votes: 5 33.3%
  • Total voters
    15
S

Surly

Active Member
I have seen heaps of threads on here from others about how in their eyes this season was a flop, did not live up to their expectations, what they would do differently, etc. but no one has really said what exactly they were looking for from Channel 10's 2025 OG reboot of Big Brother Australia.

Were you expecting the 1 and only Gretel Killeen to make a hosting comeback?
Were you expecting 3 million Australian viewers to be watching each TV episode?
Were you expecting 5,000 people to be in the live Dreamworld studio audience?

Who knows, maybe channel 10 did lead us on with deceptive marketing? or maybe we were being too unrealistic to expect a carbon copy noughties Big Brother in the twenties.
 
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.
 
I was expecting low budget, but not 30 days kind of low budget.

In hindsight, it all definitely felt like a trial season for the production to get training in.
Play it safe, sample as many BB elements as possible, see what happens with TikTok and virality.
See how much of a pain the housemates are behind the scenes.
Even the deceptive marketing may just be getting practice in for next time?
We will know by next season.

If it had gone on for much longer, I think we would've appreciated what channel 10 was doing, just cuz it would've shown the housemates more to us.
But then again, a literal dreamworld ride is giving messages from the outside world, and they knew it'd happen too, so IDK, not very cut off.
Hope they change that.
The voting was a joke... Website was a joke... Interviews were basically "hey ur out, yay!".
They really need to be going super modern with an app and website that does everything, because the ch10 network itself is too small for a show this large.
 
Also, at no point was it declared a trial season. That’s all just rumour and hearsay and probably viewers just attempting to justify why this season was so poorly executed. “Oh, they were trialing the show” - yeah ok.
 
I was definitely shocked when the show first started. I remember being so excited for it to finally come back to 10 and thought finally it’s in safe hands. The promo campaign only fuelled this thought. I was not expecting a copy of the old 10 days, but definitely a season heavily influenced by them. Then it all turned around for me when they changed the eye, suddenly my expectations lowered and thought we were going to get a copy of the ITV UK Big Brother. I was still hopeful and excited however, but then shocked again when it launched and the first few episodes played out and I remember instantly thinking the editing music needed to go which was my main issue at the time. It was clear they were taking the show in a completely different direction and were trying new things and as people have said produced an ITV and channel 7 hybrid.

Overall I don’t think it was a horrible season but I wouldn’t call it a good season either. Some elements grew on me, I liked the housemates, I liked the stage and Mel, there was some great moments, there were some solid episodes but it definitely was not what I thought it was going to be initially. Towards the end I actually started to appreciate that the daily shows had a range of content from funny moments, serious chats, challenges, general conversations which I enjoyed and I think is good as a universal appeal.
The editing and overproduced nature is obviously a big flaw and probably the biggest, and as stated above it did not feel like an organic show or social experiment which should be the basis identity of big brother.

I will also add, I think it’s a shame cause they definitely had all the elements to produce a good season, solid housemates, good host, decent looking stage, I’m sure they could’ve stripped back the house to make it look simpler yet still modern, many great moments and footage that could’ve been used, but overall the editing, presentation and formatting really let them down which could’ve been all simple fixes.
 
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jessy_girl said:
I mean, after dedicating months to watching marathons of old seasons like a loser (no offence to the others who did this lol) as a promotion for this season I guess I was expecting something a little bit like that?
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I hear ya, talk about raising expectations only to shit all over us.

As for what I expected: I expected the episodes and (especially) the live shows to be professionally produced to a similar standard as the 9/10 eras, albeit on a smaller scale. I expected there to be rules and a BB presence that actually enforced them. I expected a stage/auditorium with a fucking roof.

Seriously 10, WTF?
 
I was expecting OG with a 2025 look/ feel.

House:
Expected: Modern take on everyday house with colour (like 01/ 02 but with more colours) without the luxury modern appliances like washing machines, dryer, dishwasher etc.
Got: 3 star hotel with cameras, poorly built and over use of colour but had all the luxury of a 5 star hotel.
Rating from what i expect: 02/10.

Housemates:
Expected: like they promised Real people with real stories, the kind of people i would run into at my local coles/ woollies.
Got: alright mix of real people, delusional people and media hoes.
4 people who wouldn't know what the inside of a coles/ woolies looks like (Holly, Michael, Bruce and The toddler).
Mia, Jane, Ed, Emily and Allana are all i would run into at the shops. Abiola and Coco, half everyday, half just wanting media attention, Vinnie and Conor bith just after the media attention.
Rating: 07/10.

Format:
Excepted: short session with OG rules and format (as Peter Abbott once said "Boredom is king")
Got: short session with no rules and as much producer manipulation as thry could fit in.
Rating: 02/10.

Overall I feel the only things that came close to what I was expecting/ Hoping for were the housemates (admitted s bit boring but some real people in there) and the 'Live' element.
I feel like we were watching some real people on a month long hotel on the GC with some Media hoes thrown in because it's 2025.
Overall from what i expect it was a 03/10.
 
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