What more do we need?

It’s been a few months since my last blog entry, and lately I’ve had all kinds of thoughts and ideas swimming around in my head so I need to get some of them down on paper (figuratively speaking).

The thing that’s been bugging me the most this week is the idea of leaked information, and what exactly that has meant during this pre-season. In previous years, it was all very exciting to come and visit this site, and watch it defy the BB producers by revealing their secrets before anyone was supposed to know about them. And certainly, in the past twelve months since I became a staff member I’ve been doing a fair share of the secret-leaking.

But this year it’s been different, because BB has revealing a lot of secrets all on their own, moreso than any year before. It started perhaps with the first teaser promo, which came out onto Youtube and our forums via an official Ten staffer. It’s continued in the past week as, for the first time, they’ve been revealing selected Housemates to us as part of the on-air promo campaign. And it came to a peak tonight as the Top 30 Countdown radio program was recorded inside the house, with the hosts giving out extensive details about the brand-new BB house.

So what is there left for us here to do? It’s fantastic that they’re recognising the potential of this kind of marketing campaign, but now they’re doing our job for us! Sure, we’ve still had plenty of our own victories, breaking news that was never supposed to come out and upsetting many within the BB compound. DQ in particular has been dishing it out for the past five months.

After last year’s breakthrough when one of our forum members found the names and pictures of all every HM 24 hours prior to the taping of Launch night, there’s the obvious speculation as to whether or not we’ll once again pull off something that huge. Time is certainly running out, as we’re less than 48 hours away from launch.

But my opinion is that is doesn’t matter any more. I’m at the point where I’ve heard so much, both officially and unofficially, that my desire for pre-season knowledge has been sated. I can sit comfortably waiting for launch, knowing that we’ve heard all kinds of things already about the coming season – while still being very much being secure in the knowledge that there are things, big things, that we don’t know about, and won’t know about until they happen. And that’s perfectly fine with me, because if I didn’t have that excitement of anticipation, the series would be dead to me already.

So if something happens and we do in fact get that huge leak this year, that’ll be awesome. But if we don’t? I won’t be bothered. I’m ready for Launch.

My next blog will come out hopefully in the next week or so – and I’ll be doing something that’s gonna be a BBBA first.

Will

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Change is a good thing right?

So Gretel’s gone to that great eviction stage in the sky, or a donkey sanctuary or something, meaning this year there is a very visible change in the form of Kyle and Jackie O.

It seems a risky appointment – but that’s far better than going for some reliable autocue reader with little personality – and it could just work. And if it doesn’t, well I think it’ll be entertaining watching their careers just slip away.

The more important change of course though is that of the production team. Love him (his mum) or hate him (the rest of us), four years is just too long to be in charge of a show like Big Brother, and Kris Noble ran out of ideas at least two years before he left.

So far the new producers (Rory Callaghan and Virginia Hodgson) seem to be heading in the right direction, but it’s not what they’re promising, it’s what they deliver which they will be judged on – and we all know how many promises have been broken in the past.

It’s not so much about what twists they come up with or what they steal from abroad and pass off as a “world first” – but it’s how they execute the things they do.

In many respects it doesn’t matter too much what they do – but it’s very important that what they do do, they do well.

After all, it only take one bad move for the series to be written off once again.

So what do you think – add you comments on our new BBBA community blogs here. And if you’d like a place to share your thoughts, why not try the brand spanking new BBBA user blogs and get blogging yourself.

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5 days to go!

Hey All,

So we’re just 5 lazy days away from the launch and things are starting to well and truly heat up around here. More and more forum members are joining up each day and more members are stopping by. For example, today up until 5.30pm, we’ve had 550 unique members (members, not guests) drop by and 9 new members sign up. 21 new threads today, and 571 posts in the past 17 hours. Is that enough useless facts for you? Hope so!

As always at this time of year, there is a LOT of info out there. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out whats true and whats just damn ridiculous. Lets hope that the Corey rumour falls into the ridiculous category.

The idea of letting the audience meet some of the housemates before the launch has been great I think. It looks likely that before Sunday we’ll meet 4 of them. However, I’m thinking that these 4 people will be called ‘Gatecrashers’ and won’t actually enter until the Sunday after in the special show. But, could be proven wrong…

I’m hoping 12-14 housemates enter on Sunday night. Thats a nice number. Having 18 in there at once the following week won’t be nice though. 18 is far too many. A few of the duller housemates won’t get any airtime at all, and with the absence of Uplate meaning that even less airtime, they’ll struggle to survive if nominated.

The move to Sunday night for Nominations (basically straight after evictions) will be very interesting to watch. Perhaps they should’ve gone back to what they did in BB1 and just show them in the daily show the following day (The UK still do this), but Network 10 love making programs out of anything, and the nomination show has been around for 7 years so perhaps it’s too much to ask to cut that.

We still don’t know if they’ll be any HD content; I’d suggest since we don’t know anything, there won’t be. Especially with the IPL Cricket being shown on HD for the next couple of months.

The big plus for me this year is the attempt again at a panel show. I REALLY hope it succeeds. It’s got intelligent people on board so it just might. As long as they don’t turn it into a panel Uncut show. Sure, show some mature conversations that can’t be shown during the regular 7:00pm slot, and the occassional nudity moment, but then lets just have some healthy debate around the table.

Moving on, this year at BBBA is looking great. The radio show will be returning May 3rd, so stay tuned for that. This year it’ll be a shorter and sharper show, but many of the best features will be kept (ie the debate, mailbag….now I think about it, the best bits are all my segments ) So please, even if you didn’t listen last year, give us a listen the first week and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

User blogs are also introduced for the first time, so you too can ramble on about anything you want. Members can rate other members and if they rate highly enough, you’ll feature prominently on the User Blog page; so please hop to it and start blogging!

And lastly, vibes and I are also working on a Recap Library we hope will go live bit by bit throughout the season.

The forums of course have had a slight redesign as well and are looking great. Where else can you can to hundreds of other obsessed fans of the show? Basically…nowhere!

I’ll be back in a couple of days to give you the rundown of the housemates we’ve met so far.

Until then,
Dave

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