Big Brother was once worth watching - Telegraph article
 

As unlikely as this now sounds, there was a time when Big Brother was worth watching. No, really, there was. This is easy to forget when the latest series, which only started last week, has already attracted hundreds of complaints from viewers, appalled by the wanton behaviour of the housemates.

Marco Pierre White Jr (the odious son of a stock cube salesman) seems intent on fornicating and groping his way through series 17 of the show. Laura Carter and Evelyn Ellis, meanwhile, have taken permanent leave of their clothes and last night cosied up together in the hot tub. Alas, two pairs of boobs and one massive tit look set to dominate Channel 5 this summer...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/0...really-it-was/

It was?

Can garuantee this TV snob hasn't even watched BB this year or any series since about 2001

I'm sure he has. Given that he's reflecting the views of most people posting on forums like these or Digital Spy.

oh just read the article. BB1 was so boring but he's entitled to his opinion

Good idea to read the article before posting on it. BB1 was exciting for its time and had one of the best BB scenes ever when they confronted Nick.

BB3 and BB5 remain, by some distance the two best series imo.

And it has nothing to do with being a TV snob. A TV snob would never say BB was worth watching in the first place. It's about recognizing a serious decline in quality, and if people can't acknowledge this has happened, I don't know what to say.

I think some people are still in denial about this series...

For me, launch night was so promising but between Marco and Laura's trash and the splitting of production between two houses, it's been very difficult to get to know the HM's and feels overproduced. I have to put a lot of effort to catch up because I am overseas.

His opinion is automatically bad as he ignored the peak of BB, BB6!

This series > BB1

But that had vile nudity and attention seekers so it's bad tv!!1!1!

There's drama that gives people something to talk/complain about. But how anyone can look at the production staff and their repeated failures and say, objectively, that this show is good is beyond me. You might enjoy the car crash nature of it all, but the show has been wrecked.

My own view is that they should drop the celebrity series they do in the Summer, which never does as well as the one in Jan, and use the money to make the two series left as good as they can be. Clearly there are budget issues, but why destroy the programme altogether because you want to milk it for everything it's worth, instead of making one celeb series and one main series as good as they can be, which begins with giving fans what they've been asking for for years. That can only begin once you find a way to save money and you do that by not spending a ridiculous amount of it on celebrities 2 times a year.

Nope. BB1 had a very clear and basic format that did not leave everyone totally baffled by it like this series has done.

Any series where the production team become over-reliant on endless twists which they seem incapable of pulling off and never fully explain cannot be anything other than a failure, regardless of how much enjoyment you might get out of watching a tit of a man suck on the tit of a woman.

Great article and so right. :clap1:

I'm no BB1 fan, but I would take it over what we get now.

No he didn't. He clearly mentions it, along with Kinga, in the article.

It was boring. It's only remembered fondly because it was the first series and seemed exciting and unique at the time it aired

I forgot Channel 5 were aiming for a telegraph reading audience

:joker: :joker: :joker:

Or because they had housemates with, what's it called again.... oh yeah, personalities.

Well that's the whole point... That's the reason it was worth watching at the time.

I don't agree that BB1's HMs had 'personalities' though to any extent greater than the HMs we get now. They were quite basic and held back a lot.

I don't know how old you are, but if you watched it when it aired originally, it was the most discussed show on television.

And you can excuse it for getting a little dull after Nick left, because it was the first ever show. It had to be tweaked a little and it was and you got BB3 and then BB5 as a result.

But anyone who thinks any effort on Channel 5 with the lack of live coverage, the meddling with nominations, the crap website, the endless twists which never work and on and on, has surpassed what it became on Channel 4 from about BB2 - BB7 is watching a different show to me and should frankly be held as partly responsible for the sorry state it is now in.

lmao the "villain" of the series had the personality of a door. The only good housemates were Caroline, Anna and Sada. Some of the males had no personality whatsoever

I watched like the fist 12 episodes oh YouTube because I was about 2 when it first aired. I had to stop because it was boring. Maybe it's a generational thing but I prefer series with lots of drama and comedic moments like BB17

Haters can stop watching and watch BB2 on YouTube or something. The show is what it is and has evolved, for good or bad, and this series has been great so far so I don't see the issue

Yeah, that's true. The real differences between BB2 - BB9 and what we get now are the production team and its constant need to manipulate and contrive drama and the way they have thrown away the entire format of the show in attempting to do so which has just made them look ridiculous and the show borderline unwatchable.

I think it's more the fact that the show has developed, and has got more extreme over time @greg

I think it's totally a generational thing. Watch an episode of Corrie or Eastenders on YouTube from the 80s and it's a very different show to what airs now.
High drama is where series tend to peak the first time they have it and then all they can do is try and retain it. Doesn't work. But they can't go back either.

See, I get this, I really do. But those times have changed.

Back then, boredom was key in seeing what would happen, eg. unexpected friendships etc...

But that wouldn't work. And it's not just BB, but other shows too. BB is old, it's 17 years old. They've done everything. Of course it was fresher back then. EVERY series in the world was.It would not survive with a BB1/2 format, it certainly could with a BB3 onwards one though. Even from BB3, producers tried to stir (see first eviction).

It was proven to us last year. The first 2 weeks was the least manipulated series in a long time, but people were not interested. There is no way people would watch 10 weeks of people talking to chickens (even if it was for a bit). After 1 day people would say "OMG it's so dull and switch off". It's just not possible to go back to basics. People nowadays want BAM BAM. People don't have patience to see something slowly blossom (not just BB fans but all shows!)

We've been through the ringer and back, that it'd just not be feasible to return back to that.

The whole point of Big Brother is that you watch it unfold as it happens. No series is going to be as exciting when you watch it back without all the talk that was going on at the time about it.


It's had all the same problems, if not more, that it is has had on Channel 5 for the last 3 or 4 years and perhaps some new ones thrown in as well. The show has not evolved, it has devolved. And it will not get better until everyone acknowledges this so that they recognize something has to be done to salvage it before it is just axed.

This is 2016 and it's an interactive show with no website, no live coverage (which the original idea was built on), constant meddling in nominations to the point where the viewers, presenters and even the producers don't know what's going on. That does not and could not ever represent an improvement.

And why fans of the show who are unhappy should be told to just "Switch off" when all they want is the show to improve has always been beyond me.

Well they certainly displayed more about them as people than the basic inane sh*te we get now.

:joker:

And do enlighten me as to the personalities we have been presented with this year?

It's also worth asking if you watched BB1 as it aired, or whether you watched it years later?

(the odious son of a stock cube salesman)

and thus the tone of the "article" was set

:rolleyes:

And there we have it. :joker:

No need to laugh at my opinions. Bit rude.

https://uploadir.com/u/netlmhem

Can we at least agree that BB17 > BB2

:smug:

I'm laughing more at you watching 12 episodes on youtube god knows how many years after it aired.

No one likes a liar.

The people who are watching Big Brother today and mostly those who always did watch it (it's just more and more of them have turned off). But all of us know full well that it has experienced an extraordinary decline in quality on Channel 5. That deterioration can be offset to some extent by a good choice of housemates, but they're fighting a losing struggle against the production team which seems to be run by idiots, who have forgotten that this is an interactive show and they have built a brick wall up between it and the fans.