Celebrity Big Brother

@gracedent
'the olympics REALLY shifted the zeitgeist, we'll never tolerate crap z-listers agai….OMG THE SITUATION IS ON CBB!!' - everyone on twitter

Not surprised to see Julie Goodyear here, she's been on so much reality TV rubbish in the past few years it was only a matter of time before she made it into the BB house!

Although I missed the launch show, and I'm not all that interested in BB these days, I'm rooting for Rhian, mainly
because she's a local girl from my neck of the woods ... and not necessarily because she gets her boobs out
on Page 3 of The Sun! She's from Radcliffe, which is right next to my hometown of Whitefield.

I've read some really nasty comments on Facebook about her being very slim ... some folks are just jealous.

Well, this thread didn't receive much attention did it? I didn't watch Big Brother this time, apart from the first episode of course, it seems maybe no one else on TV Forum did either. I did catch some episodes of Big Brother's Bit on the Side though, and I think they deserve some praise for the ending. Here it is, if you didn't sit up until 00:15 to watch it live on Friday...
[media:0b98982487]http://up.metropol247.co.uk/davidlees/bbbots_2012_end.flv[/media:0b98982487]

It was the best closing ceremony that I have seen this week (so far). Although I think Dick and Dom's version was probably better overall... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWVP61CQjB8

I did try to watch BBBOT as much as I could, of nothing else but for how entertaining the programme is. It manages very well to mix the behind the scenes, news, psychological & interactive elements of BBLB with the debates and interviews of Big Mouth, and also having a lot of jokes, added campness, use of past celebrities, and general fun that many other shows of a similar ilk have missed.

The main show really needs some work, less flashy effects, less TOWIE, less of a magazine format.

Have to say the live shows have improved vastly this series (bar the live pleas to be kept in), my only issue is Brian, he really needs Emma presenting with him. I really would't mind some elements stolen from the new BB Australia series such as the points system of nominations, housemates have 5 points to allocate to those who they want to nominate. The points can be split 4/1 between two people or 3/2, they're done semi face to face in a glass sound-proof chamber where the housemates sit behind them. Also could borrow the no-outside contact rule and properly strict punishments!

For the whole approach towards the show, it needs to go backwards to go forwards. After a good start I completely lost interest after a few days (again) because it was just annoying to keep up with. BB works better when it is completely stripped back. I don't mind the odd bit of editing when necessary (e.g. nominations, to speed up tasks etc) but making a montage out of the smallest thing (such as getting up) is just silly.

The live shows have also been taken too far and are overproduced to the point where they just look tacky and cheap. Again, they need completely stripping back and going further than your suggestion, I think Emma should take over completely. She is very similar to Davina and that is a figure that has been lacking for quite a while. Emma also has a more robust interview style.

I also feel that with Channel 5 wanting younger people in the house, they're completely ignoring what viewers of the show actually want. The winners of the first four Channel 5 series' were all the oldest. The winner of the one just gone was one of the oldest, with the combined age of the top 3 well over 100! If that isn't evidence enough of what viewers want, then I don't know what is.

To get me back as a viewer, they'd need to:

1. Take the daily highlights programme back to being a linear run of events - no montages. All the MTV style stuff doesn't suit the format and just makes me feel like I'm being patronised; part of the charm of the series was that you could watch events unfold naturally.
   
2. Drastically cut the level of cheese involved with the tasks. I caught a bit of that last 'BBTV' one and the whole thing made me want to vomit.
   
3. Stop trying to copy every successful element of every other reality TV show. Several features have been abruptly shoe-horned in from I'm A Celebrity and it just feels nasty. At the rate they're going they'll end up making the auditions process an 8-week show of it's own with a fixed panel of judges.
   
4. Vary up the selection of house mates. They're all far too bland. Stop basing it all on looks.
   
5. Reduce the reliance on narration. Marcus Bentley natters over everything for far too long. His role should simply be to introduce a scene, stating who is where and what they're doing (for example "x is in the cooking a tasty fry up for all the housemates" needs only be "x is preparing a meal"). Also stop Marcus Bentley voicing it as though he's a parody of himself or better still give the job to somebody else.

btw is it me or are they not using radio mics any more? I've seen a few screencaps and nobody seems to be wearing them.

There's been one addition to the format since BB went to Channel 5 which I've found extremely welcome: the use of "flashback" footage during the highlights shows, to substantiate and contextualise a reference by a housemate to something that happened the previous day (or earlier).

This value of this feature was clearly seen when Julie Goodyear referred to "the force of [Coleen's] custard pie in my face - it nearly knocked my teeth out", with the "flashback" revealing the custard pie splat to be extremely gentle.

The lack of any such feature on Channel 4's "bare bones" presentational style always created a bit of a black hole; whenever a "he said / she said" reference was made to an earlier event, viewers who may have missed the original event had no choice but to take to Digital Spy / YouTube to attempt to find out what really happened.

The cornerstone of BB is "Big Brother sees everything" so it always seemed logical that historical footage should be replayed where necessary, to emphasise the fact that housemates can't get away with fibbing about what really happened.

Agreed. It had a much stronger and easier to dip-into narrative - which had the effect of making me watch it more anyway as it was better produced.

Has it really been a year already? No, it hasn't.

This is on Channel 5 right now. I have not seen any promotion for this series at all apart from an advert at a bus stop.

There was a news report before it started, the first story was "Channel 5 News understands that Jim Davidson will not be appearing in Big Brother, which starts in a few minutes".