chameleoncircuit
01-11-2024, 07:31 PM
Hello all,
Please forgive me if this ought to be in a different thread but I couldn't immediately find something so decided to create my own.
I am also new to this forum although I am a long-term fan of Big Brother. I have decided to join the forum and create this thread to see if I am alone in my impressions towards the show and to engage in some discussions.
I have titled the thread "ITV and the Future" because I want to gauge people's thoughts on how ITV are doing as the host channel and to what extent we think Big Brother's return (now that we are onto series 2 and CBB has been again confirmed for next year) is permanent.
This will be a slightly long intro post because I want to put down a number of subjects, but please feel free to offer opinions on anything rather than everything - some of my gripes may be trivial to you or you may have other things to add.
First and foremost, I think the show has improved from its Channel 5 days. I remember at the time Channel 5 revived the show it felt incredibly tabloid-y and cheap. In comparison, I think the quality of the show is better and that we have had two series of good housemates. Not perfect, but a decent bunch.
BUT...
I've been frustrated this year that as of yet we haven't had a normal round of nominations, despite repeated rule breakages on this topic (as an aside, I think the punishments for these rule breaks have been very weak and we ought to bring back proper repercussions like putting people up for eviction rather than making them sit in the garden for a few hours). The lack of normal nominations is compounded by the introduction of the Head of House this series. I think it was fun at first - and perhaps could have been an interesting, unique twist during Halloween - but I am bored of it and would rather the basics of nominations weren't meddled with in general. (Also why do they make them sit around for the duration of nominations rather than just have them go about their day? It limits content and feels like an attempt to produce tension). I appreciate it isn't just ITV BB that has changed the nomination format, but it is frustrating when the series is so much shorter than in past years. This, in itself, is an issue for me. I get the ITV2 schedule means Love Island occupies BB's traditional slot, but I would like to see the series start earlier to give us a longer run.
The lack of normal nominations brings me onto another gripe. Outside interference. This week one of the reasons Emma gave for giving Ali a killer nomination was that she "misjudged" another housemate (Segun) and that her girlfriend's phone call had shed light on this. Frustrating because we know that to be an inaccuracy since Lily miscommunicated the message - and perhaps that's where the fault truly lies - but we would never have had this if there weren't phone calls from home being used in a task. Again I know this isn't unique to ITV BB but it feels like a device being used regularly by the show and to me goes against rule 1 of the Big Brother format. Second, given the ITV series is so short, it feels totally unnecessary to be feeding the housemates with messages from loved ones. Last year's task which included family and friends coming into the house and being able to talk to the housemates whilst they faced away in a glass box was a really rubbish decision I thought. I will admit that Matty's eviction last year via a fake letter from home was incredibly dramatic and enjoyable, but I think we need to get rid of this outside influence that seems to be creeping in - and, irrespective of your views on the housemates involved, did deliberately contribute to one housemate facing eviction this week.
Next on the list, the show's general production. Why, why, why does every episode now begin with a 20 second snippet of a song and montage of different shots rather than just launch straight into DAY, TIME, EVENT. I find it really cheesy and silly. They have been doing this for years now, but it breaks the rawness of the show for me. With something like Big Brother, I am actually watching for the social experiment idea of the show - I just want them to feed back to me things that have happened in the last 24 hours, I don't need some Love Island-style scene setting with the latest charting topping hit. They also use this montage clip style in other parts of the show, like after ad breaks and it's not something I enjoy. It feels like the producers are trying to put on a show for me, but the highlights from the last 24 hours is the show. I appreciate if this sounds contradictory but hopefully you get what I mean. I am convinced they throw more parties and provide the housemates with more alcohol than they used to. Every night it seems they give the housemates a "reward" for [insert irrelevant reasoning here]. And to me, they do this in the hope of getting the housemates a little tipsy so they'll say things but actually, some of the best conversations and moments from the house over the years have been the housemates filling their own time and suppressing their own boredom. It also seems to be part of this need to have fast-paced action in the house - with daily tasks and food shop tasks which are over and done with in no time. Where are the week-long shopping tasks that force the housemates to really invest in winning and creating real, genuine frustration when they fall short? None of the shopping tasks this year feel like they come with high stakes - the government/budgeting task earlier in the series had absolutely no consequences as far as I could tell. Big Brother ought to have pre-set a budget that had to be maintained by the end of the task that meant if the government housemates overspent, they would lose. Instead, it felt like Big Brother just decided through some unknown factors whether the housemates had satisfied the task outcomes.
Leading on, what's the deal with the Big Brother voice? I actually don't mind big brother having a voice and kind of like the personality the voice has, but it's the introduction of something I don't think we needed. Also (and this may be a stupid question) but is that actually a person or is it a computer-generated voice that can be made to speak by anyone? Who do the housemates speak to at 3am if they come to the diary room? Do they not show us diary room clips that feature other people speaking with the housemates?
Production I guess can also relate to the visuals - be that the graphics or the house itself. The latter I am unimpressed with. I know they knocked down the old set, but it was far superior, wasn't it? The new house - well-decorated though it is - just doesn't do it for me. The garden is tiny and we lost lots of the little spots that housemates in the past found themselves chatting in because of its size.
The house also lacks personality and it's the same (spare different colours) from last year which is incredibly lazy from ITV. Remember when the house itself used to be part of how the show played out - during a Channel 4 year the ceilings were lowered to give the housemates a sense that things were closing in, and then there was another year where different parts of the house had to be unlocked. The house now feels like nothing more than a stylish pad, but I wish it had quirks to it. I don't know whether it's been made like this because ITV aren't prepared to commit in the long-term and it is easier to dismantle an inside studio set than a purpose-built location, but I would like to see them move away from the current set to provide a bigger house, garden and eviction set. The outside stage is just dreadfully small and without thought.
I wonder if anyone else has spotted this, but I also don't think the camera runs are used very often. If ever a housemate is looking into one of the two-way mirrors, it appears that the overhead cameras are used. Is this just me?
Onto the graphics which, like the house, appear to be reused from last year. I also see they are attempting to make the circle BIG/BROTHER logo used during evictions and Late and Live a thing. Not the biggest deal and certainly low on my list of things to fix, but again contributes to this general low-value, low investment.
I am pleased we have nightly live feed though too often it is stock footage and overuse of the bird noises. There's simply no point in having the live feed if the producers are going to bait us into watching only to deprive us of any real content. It's very simple, either provide unfettered live footage from the house (with exceptions to when they need to bird noise confidential things) or ditch it. In fact, given they have the capacity to run it on ITVX, I don't see why the feed couldn't run 24 hours. Someone might point out the reasons for this and I appreciate there would be very few viewers watching round the clock, but are there many additional costs of leaving the feed running when the house is monitored anyway?
AJ and Will. I thought they were OK last year but the more exposure they have, the more I wish they weren't hosting. I don't think either of them are that bad, but I don't think they have what Big Brother demands of its presenter. Davina and Emma were excellent, they lived and breathed the show. I don't think AJ and Will do. I also think much of their contribution on the launch, evictions and final are too obviously scripted. Very little genuine ad-lib and totally uninvested in the way Davina or Emma were. Perhaps part of this is caused by both of them presenting and so there's a need to rift off one another, but I think that the double host format and AJ and Will themselves are right for the show. They clearly view Will as the secondary host given he never does the evictions, but AJ hasn't got the elements which would enable her to be the stand-out of the two naturally. I am going to do that classic BB fan thing and say "bring back Davina", but bring back Davina. In fact, she admitted in the lead-up to the ITV relaunch, that she would have came back if asked. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/23949309/davina-mccall-claims-snubbed-hosting-big-brother-reboot/
I may have other things that I want to moan about, but those are the immediate things on my chest. I would love to hear from others, has anyone else felt the way I have about certain elements or not, are there other things which are frustrating you about the show nowadays?
Thanks!
Please forgive me if this ought to be in a different thread but I couldn't immediately find something so decided to create my own.
I am also new to this forum although I am a long-term fan of Big Brother. I have decided to join the forum and create this thread to see if I am alone in my impressions towards the show and to engage in some discussions.
I have titled the thread "ITV and the Future" because I want to gauge people's thoughts on how ITV are doing as the host channel and to what extent we think Big Brother's return (now that we are onto series 2 and CBB has been again confirmed for next year) is permanent.
This will be a slightly long intro post because I want to put down a number of subjects, but please feel free to offer opinions on anything rather than everything - some of my gripes may be trivial to you or you may have other things to add.
First and foremost, I think the show has improved from its Channel 5 days. I remember at the time Channel 5 revived the show it felt incredibly tabloid-y and cheap. In comparison, I think the quality of the show is better and that we have had two series of good housemates. Not perfect, but a decent bunch.
BUT...
I've been frustrated this year that as of yet we haven't had a normal round of nominations, despite repeated rule breakages on this topic (as an aside, I think the punishments for these rule breaks have been very weak and we ought to bring back proper repercussions like putting people up for eviction rather than making them sit in the garden for a few hours). The lack of normal nominations is compounded by the introduction of the Head of House this series. I think it was fun at first - and perhaps could have been an interesting, unique twist during Halloween - but I am bored of it and would rather the basics of nominations weren't meddled with in general. (Also why do they make them sit around for the duration of nominations rather than just have them go about their day? It limits content and feels like an attempt to produce tension). I appreciate it isn't just ITV BB that has changed the nomination format, but it is frustrating when the series is so much shorter than in past years. This, in itself, is an issue for me. I get the ITV2 schedule means Love Island occupies BB's traditional slot, but I would like to see the series start earlier to give us a longer run.
The lack of normal nominations brings me onto another gripe. Outside interference. This week one of the reasons Emma gave for giving Ali a killer nomination was that she "misjudged" another housemate (Segun) and that her girlfriend's phone call had shed light on this. Frustrating because we know that to be an inaccuracy since Lily miscommunicated the message - and perhaps that's where the fault truly lies - but we would never have had this if there weren't phone calls from home being used in a task. Again I know this isn't unique to ITV BB but it feels like a device being used regularly by the show and to me goes against rule 1 of the Big Brother format. Second, given the ITV series is so short, it feels totally unnecessary to be feeding the housemates with messages from loved ones. Last year's task which included family and friends coming into the house and being able to talk to the housemates whilst they faced away in a glass box was a really rubbish decision I thought. I will admit that Matty's eviction last year via a fake letter from home was incredibly dramatic and enjoyable, but I think we need to get rid of this outside influence that seems to be creeping in - and, irrespective of your views on the housemates involved, did deliberately contribute to one housemate facing eviction this week.
Next on the list, the show's general production. Why, why, why does every episode now begin with a 20 second snippet of a song and montage of different shots rather than just launch straight into DAY, TIME, EVENT. I find it really cheesy and silly. They have been doing this for years now, but it breaks the rawness of the show for me. With something like Big Brother, I am actually watching for the social experiment idea of the show - I just want them to feed back to me things that have happened in the last 24 hours, I don't need some Love Island-style scene setting with the latest charting topping hit. They also use this montage clip style in other parts of the show, like after ad breaks and it's not something I enjoy. It feels like the producers are trying to put on a show for me, but the highlights from the last 24 hours is the show. I appreciate if this sounds contradictory but hopefully you get what I mean. I am convinced they throw more parties and provide the housemates with more alcohol than they used to. Every night it seems they give the housemates a "reward" for [insert irrelevant reasoning here]. And to me, they do this in the hope of getting the housemates a little tipsy so they'll say things but actually, some of the best conversations and moments from the house over the years have been the housemates filling their own time and suppressing their own boredom. It also seems to be part of this need to have fast-paced action in the house - with daily tasks and food shop tasks which are over and done with in no time. Where are the week-long shopping tasks that force the housemates to really invest in winning and creating real, genuine frustration when they fall short? None of the shopping tasks this year feel like they come with high stakes - the government/budgeting task earlier in the series had absolutely no consequences as far as I could tell. Big Brother ought to have pre-set a budget that had to be maintained by the end of the task that meant if the government housemates overspent, they would lose. Instead, it felt like Big Brother just decided through some unknown factors whether the housemates had satisfied the task outcomes.
Leading on, what's the deal with the Big Brother voice? I actually don't mind big brother having a voice and kind of like the personality the voice has, but it's the introduction of something I don't think we needed. Also (and this may be a stupid question) but is that actually a person or is it a computer-generated voice that can be made to speak by anyone? Who do the housemates speak to at 3am if they come to the diary room? Do they not show us diary room clips that feature other people speaking with the housemates?
Production I guess can also relate to the visuals - be that the graphics or the house itself. The latter I am unimpressed with. I know they knocked down the old set, but it was far superior, wasn't it? The new house - well-decorated though it is - just doesn't do it for me. The garden is tiny and we lost lots of the little spots that housemates in the past found themselves chatting in because of its size.
The house also lacks personality and it's the same (spare different colours) from last year which is incredibly lazy from ITV. Remember when the house itself used to be part of how the show played out - during a Channel 4 year the ceilings were lowered to give the housemates a sense that things were closing in, and then there was another year where different parts of the house had to be unlocked. The house now feels like nothing more than a stylish pad, but I wish it had quirks to it. I don't know whether it's been made like this because ITV aren't prepared to commit in the long-term and it is easier to dismantle an inside studio set than a purpose-built location, but I would like to see them move away from the current set to provide a bigger house, garden and eviction set. The outside stage is just dreadfully small and without thought.
I wonder if anyone else has spotted this, but I also don't think the camera runs are used very often. If ever a housemate is looking into one of the two-way mirrors, it appears that the overhead cameras are used. Is this just me?
Onto the graphics which, like the house, appear to be reused from last year. I also see they are attempting to make the circle BIG/BROTHER logo used during evictions and Late and Live a thing. Not the biggest deal and certainly low on my list of things to fix, but again contributes to this general low-value, low investment.
I am pleased we have nightly live feed though too often it is stock footage and overuse of the bird noises. There's simply no point in having the live feed if the producers are going to bait us into watching only to deprive us of any real content. It's very simple, either provide unfettered live footage from the house (with exceptions to when they need to bird noise confidential things) or ditch it. In fact, given they have the capacity to run it on ITVX, I don't see why the feed couldn't run 24 hours. Someone might point out the reasons for this and I appreciate there would be very few viewers watching round the clock, but are there many additional costs of leaving the feed running when the house is monitored anyway?
AJ and Will. I thought they were OK last year but the more exposure they have, the more I wish they weren't hosting. I don't think either of them are that bad, but I don't think they have what Big Brother demands of its presenter. Davina and Emma were excellent, they lived and breathed the show. I don't think AJ and Will do. I also think much of their contribution on the launch, evictions and final are too obviously scripted. Very little genuine ad-lib and totally uninvested in the way Davina or Emma were. Perhaps part of this is caused by both of them presenting and so there's a need to rift off one another, but I think that the double host format and AJ and Will themselves are right for the show. They clearly view Will as the secondary host given he never does the evictions, but AJ hasn't got the elements which would enable her to be the stand-out of the two naturally. I am going to do that classic BB fan thing and say "bring back Davina", but bring back Davina. In fact, she admitted in the lead-up to the ITV relaunch, that she would have came back if asked. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/23949309/davina-mccall-claims-snubbed-hosting-big-brother-reboot/
I may have other things that I want to moan about, but those are the immediate things on my chest. I would love to hear from others, has anyone else felt the way I have about certain elements or not, are there other things which are frustrating you about the show nowadays?
Thanks!