| Mac Hiavellian |
14-04-2011 11:33 AM |
Various reasons.
1) HMs became 'characters'. Ever since BB2 the producers cast 'characters' to try and top the Nasty Nick drama then when BB4 was too boring they deliberately started picking peopel that were bound to clash. Ruth Wrigley once said in BB1 they'd never put a black man and a Nazi in the same house yet by BB5 we had Marco (an openly gay guy who hated asylum seekers) and Ahmed (a homophobic assylum seeker). Then came BB6 and the fakes, fame hungry wannabes, glamour models i.e. Orlaith, Sam, and after CBB5 BB relied heavily on these OTT personalities to still provide enough drama.
2) The controversy balloon. Since BB1's Nasty Nick scandal it had bene controversial. In TBB HMs finally had sex, BB5 pushed the boundaries with Fight Night, BB6 with the pool orgy and Kinga with the bottle, in CBB4 with the Jodie Marsh bullying claims and Pete Burns coat drama, and then BB7 came after the voting scam and had the golden ticket 'fix' claims, sending Nikki back in and concern over the mental state of some of the HMs. In CBB5 the balloon finally burst because the race row was an international scandal and so since then BB toned down. Apparantly BB8's Gerry claims there was lots of action in BB8 that wasn't shown (including some HMs having sex) and even in UBB there was speculation as to why Coolio left the house. Did he look up Nadia's skirt and harrass her? Why was this not shown? Or did she make it up? If so, why did Coolio leave so quickly?
3) Stupid twists/lack of twists and forgetting the rules. Every year BB changed slightly so not to get stale. Notably the logo and house change every year but it's relied on twists also. In BB2 it was Josh as the 11th HM and the surprise eviction the day before the finale, BB3 had the shock first eviction and the rich/poor divide, BB4 had quite a lot of twists with the first night nominations, rewards room, double eviction, Africa swap, sendign Jon Tickle back in as a guest and so on. BB7's theme was all about twists and so it finally gave viewers the 2nd house they'd wanted, it had the golden ticket competition, sending evicted HMs back in (and controversially making them eligible to win) and after CBB5 BB relied on 'fun' twists for BB8 that'd make the show lighthearted again and further top BB7's big twists. It gave us the all-female launch, guys gradually going in, the Half Way House (just a carbon copy of BB7's HND), Charley's fake eviction (pretty much the Nikki stunt but this time the public knew the HM would go back in). Even though i liked BB9 it was criticised for copying BB3's divide and then adding Nicole to the mix even though she never auditioned to go on the show, she was purely Rex's girlfriend - it was a desperate attempt to grab ratings. BB10 was similar with Kenneth/Carly and then Noirin/Isaac, it had the non-housemates launch twist, but BB10 even started p!ssing all over the rule book allowing HMs to have a magazine, sending Lisa and David to London, and even in BB11 HMs left the house for the eviction night tasks, or so many guests went in (army guy, that dancing guy, the entire Ignore the Obvious task, the final few days), and then there was BB allowing John James to talk to Nathan in the DR.
4) The houses. The house is a big part of BB, it has to be an interesting stage for the HMs to perfomr on and it has to be interesting enough for viewers to watch. The BB1 house was fairly plain but BB2 elevated it makign it brighter, it moved to Elstree for BB3 and was huge, BB4's house was lush. BB5 started making it gimmicky with the outside bedroom and bathroom (still interesting), BB6 had a great house but there was no bathroom - just outdoor showers (Hmm), BB7's was a strange design but it had a whoel seperate house next door to it (fans wanted this for so long). But then came BB8 with it's cramped sh!t hole with too many secret rooms/appliances. It had the HWH, that ******ing caravan, that hidden pool bar and a hiddne washign machine (Why!?!?). BB9's was again colourful and lush in places, but then came BB10's credit crunched dank puddle of p!ss. It was near enough the same layout as BB9's house but with some rooms swapping here and there, that awful chipboard wall in the kitchen, that mess of a bedroom, the basic bathroom and that ******ing diary room!!! In the end it was the BB10 HMs that provided the drama because the producers had a sh!t house, dire tasks and a lack of twists.
5) Spin-off series. CBB1 was a basic idea, it worked for Comic Relief. CBB2 was also fairly quiet with just 6 British celebs only in there for a week but it wasn't that great. Teen BB experimented with having younger HMs, being pre-recorded, having the HMs vite off eahc other rather than the public but still wasn't too great. After the success of BB5's 'evil' theme and rival celebrity reality shows 'I'm A Celebrity' and 'Hell's Kitchen' CBB was brought back but had to be tougher. CBB3 was longer, had more HMs, had international HMs, had more gruelling tasks and was great. And similarly to the Marco/Ahmed thing, the celebs were deliberately picked to clash with John being a complete misogynist and Germaine being a feminist. This is the CBB people wanted and was then topped by CBB4 (considered one of the best BB series ever) which had even more celebs, recogniseable faces, twists and a longer run. Then was CBB5 where it overshaddowed regular BB and CBB has never been the same since. Celebrity Hijack was considered a failure because it was an E4 only show and obviously tried to shy away from controversy and when CBB returned for series 6 it did have a few big names, but they were too scared to do anything majorly interesting (and the producers were probably fearful something might kick off again) so the Live Feed was cut and remained cut for BB10. At least CBB7 regenerated some interest but the fatc it got more viewers than BBs 10 and 11 shows the celebrity version is now the public's preferred version.
6) Spin-off shows. After (Or maybe even before?) Dermot left BBLB it began to get as 'wacky' as the main show, same with BBBM. The over exposure of both shows and their wakiness became turn-offs. At leats with BBLB after Dermot left he had George and Zezi working as a double act so not to put as much pressure as it would on 1 person but come BB10 IIRC people disliked George. Whereas, BBBM had a different guest presenter each week to replace Russel. At least for BB10 when Davina took over it was reduced to just Friday nights and had Davina as a solid presnter the entire run again. After the main show ditched the psychologist aspect for BB5 and 6 they briefly returned for BB's Big Brain during BB7 and Big Brother On the Couch in BB8 but neither shows generated the same sort of interest.
7) Series length/too many HMs. The fans had always wanted BB to be on for longer and have more HMs (the bigger, the better) whilst the haters already thought 9 weeks was far too long and so that, even without all the spin-off shows and live coverage was too much. BB3 upped the number of HMs from 10 to 12, BB5 extended the run from 9 to 10 weeks, and in BB6 it had 13 HMs from day 1 and an 11 week run. But with longer series comes new HMs and so BB6 had to 'spice it up' by havign 3 new HMs enter later on. It's been the same problem ever since, the longer the series, the more new HMs are expected to freshen it up but in a way it makes the previous weeks and early evictees seem more pointless in the grand scheme of things. BB7 was on for 13 weeks and had 14 HMs from launch but a further 8 late entrants, and the biggest mistake was BB8's 13/14 week series with only 11 women at launch and then a further 12 late entrants (that's more than the number iof originals!) The good thing about BBs 9 and 10 were that with 16 HMs from launch you were guaranteed drama and that there'd be less newbies, the bad side was some HMs were overshaddowed by others in the HL shows. Like I said, the CBB series got longer (but at least they were only by a few days) and CBB3 upped the usual 6 HMs to 8, and CBB4 from 8 to 11. I'm all for CBB8 having 14+ celebrity HMs but the problem with CBB was the producers started treating it like a regular BB by having evictions only once a week and a last minute rush to get the HMs out towards the end OR that, in CBB7's case, there were too many double evictions (Sov was the only HM to have a single eviction in CBB7). CBB should have at least 2/3 evictions per week and not always doubles
8) HMs that know each other! Granted, some of the HMs might know each other from the audition process (which happened in BB11) but at least they're still basically strangers to one another. CBB was slightly harder because some HMs may have met one another or even didn't want to participate unless they knew someone else (Coolio as seen in CBB6 and UBB). In CBB3 was the evil twist that saw Brigitte live with her ex-mother-in-law Jackie (fair enough), in CBB5 was the Goody family (Hmm, interesting to have a family I suppose), BB8's Samanda (What? Twins and not even a twist?!?!), BB9's Mario and Lisa (at least there's a twist!), Nicole and Rex (Why? She didn't even audition?), BB10's Kenneth (Same as above?) and Isaac (AGAIN!?!?!)
9) Other news/lack of publicity. After CBB5 it was noticeable Channel 4 didn't publicise BB as much. And after Jade Goody died I think BB suffered a bit because BB10 (the landmark series) was just too soon and then later in the year Michael Jackson died so that further knocked BB off the public's interest. As badly set up as BB10 was it suffered even more because of the other news stories at the time. And I think ultimately this was a huge part in why Channel 4 axed it along with the previous reasons.
I think CBB5 was the big turning point but there were certainly other problems both after and even before it.
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