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Worth Watching?

I started watching BBUK 2006 over a year ago but never got to finishing it, I got up to when aisleyne and Sam entered and unjust never got onto finishing it. So tempted to start watching it again!
 
I started watching BBUK 2006 over a year ago but never got to finishing it, I got up to when aisleyne and Sam entered and unjust never got onto finishing it. So tempted to start watching it again!

If my memory serves me right Sam and Aisleyene came in some time around week 3 as replacements for George and Dawn...
 
Yes, definately worth picking up and they've some great tasks and twists as the series progresses.

I started watching and I'm up to episode 5 currently and I'm already loving it, I can't remember anyhring that happened the last time I watched it. But I'm going to commit to it this time
 
I rewatched the first series of BBUK last year which just had me pining really for the good old days, even if they weren't quite as good as you remember. It was all completely natural though and had some great elements - the eviction shows were actually eviction shows too, not shouty shouty highlights with an announcement tagged on the end.

One thing they did in BB1 (and Celeb BB1) that they dropped from the second series though was allowed the nominees to get sight of their friends/family during each eviction which actually worked rather well and remdined housemates there was more to the experience than what is going on in the house. I do think the biggest problem with the show (and not just the UK) in recent years is the housemates are thought of more as characters than as people and as such just don't come across as relatable as perhaps they should. BBUK, and specifically spin-off show BBLB, used to be very good at making use of the housemates friends and family which reminded viewers the HMs were somebodies son/daughter etc. - but sadly this element drifted away around series 7.

Anyway, back to rewatching series and I did watch Celeb BB1 (from 2001) over Christmas - nice to be able to sit down and watch an entire series in about 4 hours. Back then it was genuine celebrities coming across as normal everyday folk - nowadays it's the relatively normal trying to come across as celebrities and fooling nobody.
 
Decided the most productive thing to do in lockdown is to rewatch the first series of Big Brother Canada from back in 2013. Quite surprised how much it has dated - it's almost like a series from the early noughties, not that that is a bad thing. Arisa was clearly a star though from the very first episode.
 
I'm rewatching BBUK 2006, and then after that I'll watch 2005.

I'm loving it once again but it is interesting how show content ages. Like in 2006 the housemates collectively started bullying Shabaz (although he was annoying) and BB didn't step in. Audiences just wouldn't allow that anymore. Likewise the male housemates saying crude sexual things and housemates using the word "tranny".
 
The bullying word was used at the time regarding Shabaz, but as you say he was annoying and arguably it was everyone holding his behaviour to account, but sometimes not keeping their own behaviour in check as they do so. It would certainly have been treated differently today.

I did rewatch BBUK1-3 and CBB1/2 a couple of years back, but as the main series was just 64 days back then and episodes half an hour long it wasn't too much of a commitment - you could watch a whole week in a night quite easily. It gets trickier with later series with hour long shows seven nights a week for up to 13 weeks, so it's almost three times as much to watch, so I tend to have just watched key episodes from later series.


That's kind of why I went for BB Canada as they're basically 3 x 40 minute episodes a week so you can get through a week in a two hour sitting. And like with Shabaz an incident in the first season which would likely have been treated differently a few seasons later when Tom opened the shower door on Alec to flash him to the live feeders, which on the one hand was a childish bit of revenge but Alec did take it really badly, got quite upset and called him out as a bully in the diary room, and although we saw Tom apologise to Alec very quickly, we saw absolutely no intervention from Big Brother.
 
I guess Brodie's law etc. has helped to change that.
 
Well I completed BBCAN1 and didn't regret it - great debut series and though it had a few faults along the way they were relatively minor. Moved on to BBCAN2 now and the step up is noticeable - it introduced us to the two queens of BBCanada in Ika and Neda. I'm only a week or so in but this cast is great - so different to the first series, and in a few cases not very likeable at all, but the mix is spot on.
 
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