It’s hard to believe that I started watching Big Brother in 2005, one day before I turned five years old. It launched on the 18th May 2005, and for the last fifteen years, I’ve been obsessed with this programme. If it wasn’t for Davina and Dermot, I wouldn’t be in the media industry.
I really don't think Big Brother was suitable for a 5 year old, not in this country anyway. It's quite depressing watching the new Australian version with 21 year olds claiming to be the shows biggest fan when you realise they wouldn't have been old enough to remember the original incarnation which ended in 2008 there.
That series especially, it had Kinga with the wine bottle, and Makosi claiming she got pregnant in the hot tub.
I also didn't realize the first couple of series were filmed at Three Mill Studios
Three Mills worked so much better than Elstree. The bridge was a much more effective tool to transition back to normality than the staircase at the Elstree house. Crowd were kept away from the house and more land to play with. Elstree was a bit of a bear pit.
Absolutely - crossing the bridge gave much more of an impression of the housemates being cut off from the outside world and the crowd just worked so much better. Also thought having a few moments between leaving the house and facing the crowd was quite important in giving evicted time to process the moment.
They did try in BB4 to replicate that by fencing off the front of the house and moving the crowd to outside the studio which worked quite well IMO. CBB2 also had a simple set up which saw evicted leave by the backdoor and take a short crowd free hop to a small studio set up in what would later become the Big Mouth studio which I quite liked.
Yes, I agree and the same with the break bumpers too (although extra breaks would have had to have been inserted). Crashing in and out just made it feel really edited. The presentaton was a really important part of the show too, so important it changed every year even throughout the C5 seasons too.
I wasn't the biggest fan of Big Brother and didn't watch it religiously, but that was always the most exciting part of a new series on C4 for me - seeing what the logo would look like that year (all the C4 ones were by Daniel Eatock I think) and especially when Davina would do a tour of the new house. It used to fascinate me what ideas they'd come up with that year for different rooms and the layout and stuff. Interestingly I think the only corporate thing they used to do was use the C4 font for the title of the show and the captions.
Looking at Three Mills on Google Maps, I'm struggling to find where the house was, must have been a fair amount of development there since 2002.
Red circle here I believe, just across the way from the actual studios site, you can see the bridge. Also where they did the rehearsals of the 2012 opening ceremony.
It’s the large green patch of land below the red circle, in the river fork. The bridge is no more, but you can make out the pinch points on the water banks of where is was.
I believe the site at Bow was only for two years, I wonder if they tried extending it and if the local council ended up regretting it given how successful the show went on to be .
I remember reading one of the plans for the new house was a three storey building and then at the last minute they found the site at Elstree. There was a documentary in January 2002 where Davina was stood on the empty site at Elstree , it was hard to believe it would all be ready for May.
I never really liked the eviction setup at Elstree , at times it looked like a builders yard with ladders and scaffolding in the background, my favourite setup at Elstree was BB5, the big new stage looked brilliant on launch night.
From a presentational point of view, I find it strange why they are broadcasting Channel 4's Best Ever Big Brother Shows from 2000-2010, yet they are using a Channel 5 style gold Big Brother eye logo?
It’s the new international Big Brother logo introduced by Endemol before our version ended in 2018.
Surely they weren't forced to use the international logo? This is the current Australian logo.
If it's not mandatory to use the corporate branding, then what was stopping them using one of the old eyes from seasons 2-11?
That isn't the Australian logo - they use an updated version of the C5 template, which for a while was used internationally but since 2018 this design has been the one generally used internationally and it just feels right using this. I think the Eatock template looks quite dated nowadays.
LondonViewer is right regarding the house - and the studio was in the building across the river. I think those white roofs are probably marquees and where the crowd used to be. Would be interesting to see if any plans were ever made for a BB3 house at Bow though I think the local council were always pretty clear they wouldn't extend the lease. To be honest BBUK outgrew the Elstree house around BB7/8 when they started wanting to add second houses but although they achieved it they didn't quite have the space they really needed.
If it's not mandatory to use the corporate branding, then what was stopping them using one of the old eyes from seasons 2-11?
Australia has always done its own thing, and I think that EndemolShine were keen on transitioning the UK franchise to the new branding. As seen on the BBUK Auditions page.
