Davina and Rylan to front Big Brother show for E4

Wait and see if they show any of BB3 with chain-smoking Spencer (who didn't seem to do anything other than sit around smoking, but seemed to be popular for some reason, though I don't think most of the contestants that year were much better), and CBB4 with chain smoking... everyone. Almost hard to remember how horrible it was when people could smoke indoors, though most people I know had already stopped it in their houses anyway by the time BB started. I remember at the time of CBB4 in 2006 plenty of people were pretty suprised at how much smoking there was in there.

Then again there was the controversy over smoking on Love Island only a couple of years ago, so it's not something that's gone away entirely.

Presumably the cigarettes were provided by Big Brother and not taken out of the shopping budget? (Watching last night, under £100 after WINNING the task for 7 housemates only gave them around £15 a piece for the week!)

I'm struggling to remember, but I think they were allowed to take some in, then the remainder went on the shopping list.
Nadia had a meltdown in the diary room when she'd run out.

I'm sure they had to buy them as I seem to remember that being the source of a number of arguments over the years. Think they were allowed to bring in as many as they could fit in their suitcase as well and there were a few storylines about people nicking fags from other people's cases.

I seem to remember Les Dennis took some in on CBB2 for the other contestants, not for himself.

One thing I remember when they did the rich/poor side on BB3 the poor side only got cheap rolling tobacco, and Spencer complained endlessly about it.

Was it BB5 that the highlight shows were extended to 50 mins?

I hated it when the highlight shows moved to 9pm in series 7 , I much preferred the 10pm slot.

Yes, and despite other than the Nasty Nick episode always managing to keep to a 30 minutes a day slot for four years once they got the extra 20 minutes they seemed to extend the show by a further 10-15 minutes if a housemate did as much as sneezed in BB5 & BB6. I do think 50 minutes was about right though, with an hour on the Sunday to cover Friday (a quiet day in the house) and Saturdays.


Agree the main series was much more suited to a 10pm slot - generally rated better there too.

Yeah, it did become a bit too much of a commitment, I think. It's a bit like when we talk about late night chat shows, if they're going to be on every day they need to be pretty late to avoid them becoming a bit too much of an obligation for the audience and a bit of a chore, because otherwise they clash with too many other things.

I think the final of Big Brother 3 remains the highest rated episode ever, I think it got about ten million viewers. I think that was a massive shock for ITV because at the time they were obsessed with BBC1 and would run Millionaire opposite their big shows on every occasion and was only bothered about beating them, and they would always say they weren't bothered about shows that only skewed young because they were a mainstream channel. And then C4 got an enormous rating with Big Brother, which they couldn't do with just young audiences alone, and I think that led to a real change of thinking at ITV with entertainment now skewing much younger.

It was certainly a big talking point, that series. I remember I used to listen to Dave Pearce on Radio 1 on the way home from work who would always have a text-in question, and someone would always, always text in "Jade Goody", regardless of the question. "Who should be the next Prime Minister?" "Jade Goody!" "Who should be Christmas number one?" "Jade Goody!" "What's the capital of France?" "Jade Goody!!!"

Noticed during the talent show that there was a shot of Barrymore after his performance wearing his normal clothes but another shot later on had him back in his German clothes. Wonder why?

Only reason I can think of is footage being shown out of sequence - but the show always tells you what time it is, so that shouldn't be possible.

I'm sure it was disapproved of at the time, but through the lens of life in 2020 Dennis Rodman's predatory behaviour was truly horrendous, and Rula & George's response almost putting the blame on the girls wasn't much better. I was glad to see Rylan and Davina commenting on it, though. This is where the look backs benefit from some added context like this.

Just to think if they'd opened the diary room door when Nikki asked they'd never have got one of the shows most famous moments.