When Channel Four posted up on their website a couple of days ago that they wanted our help in setting the task for Saturday I decided to send them an email, partly to give a few task suggestions, but mainly because I thought it was a good opporutnity to let them know some of our views on the show this year. I couldn't get the email address that they gave to work, so I decided to send my suggestions and comments direct to Helen Hawken, series editor of BB, and this morning I got a response back from her that I thought you might be interested in reading.
------------------
My Email to Helen Hawken and the Task Team
The first bit of the email relates to my task suggestions - a bit pathetic I know
but I then go on to comment on the lack of tasks in this years BB etc...
Hi
My name is Lesley Edwards and I admin
http://www.thisisbigbrother.com/forum
It is difficult to think of a physical task that you will be able to set up
with so little notice and that can be prepared and achieved by the
housemates in the Saturday evening Half Hour Live Show.
Suggestions
1. Some sort of simple assault course set up in the garden. This couldn't
be too compicated as they would have little or no time to practice.
2. Physical Exercises. Something along the lines of the housemates having
to do a certain number of situps or push ups. You could have ranges and
depending on the number performed is the percentage of their full food
budget they get.
3. Give the housemates a volleyball, split them into two teams. They must
not let the ball touch the ground for an alloted amount of time. Each
person who fails to keep the ball in the air incurs 10 penalty points for
his/her team. The winning team gets full rations, the losing team reduced
rations for the week. The shopping budget is to include a specific
allocation for luxury items and the losing team are not allowed a share of
these during the following week. Anyone caught breaking the rule will get
an automatic strike.
4. A task involving building or making a model of something - I'm sorry but
I am running out of ideas here.
5. A treasure hunt, following a series of clues set by BB - the further
they get in the alloted time the bigger shopping budget they get. If they
follow all clues they get an extra luxury prize. Again you could split the
into two teams for this and have them competing.
Anyway those are a few ideas for the task this week. I must say that I don't
like the idea of having the main task given out and performed live every
Saturday. One of the main highlights of the weeks viewing for the past two
years has been seeing the housemates preparing for the weeks task. This
gave them something to do and us something more interesting to watch. This
year there has been so little to do that the housemates and the viewers have
be bored. They are building no sense of teamwork and ar not bonding. Maybe
this is what you want - maybe you want them to stay as individuals and not
become friendly in the same way that they did in BB2, but it is making for
very boring TV.
By only showing the task on a Saturday you are reducing it to the status of
a mini task and giving the housemates nothing to work together on. This
wouldn't be too bad if you gave them more mini tasks during the week, but
the only one so far has been painting the dining room chairs and that was
hardly riveting TV.
If you visit our forum by following the link above you will see I am not
alone in thinking this. The general concensus on our site (and several
others that I have looked at) is that BB3 is nowhere near as good as BB2 and
one of the main reasons for this is that the housemates have nothing to do
so they spend their time sitting on the sofa and chatting all day, or
bitching about each other behind each others backs.
I lived BB last year and was a huge fan. I am finding it very hard work to
get into this year and honestly think that if I didn't help run a very
popular fansite I might have stopped watching by now. And for me to say that
there must be something seriously wrong!
PLEASE do something to win the likes of me back. I am not on my own, you
only have to read the comments on thisisbigbrother.com and on other forums
such as talkbigbrother, BBfans or reality-tv.net to see this.
I know viewing numbers are up this year, but there was a lot more media
coverage in the run up to BB3 and this was bound to spark peoples interests
off earlier. I honestly think that unless you do something to make this
years show more interesting than it is proving to be at the moment you run a
very high risk of losing viewers as the show progresses over the nine weeks.
I hope you have taken the time to read my comments and that you will think
about them. I am a huge BB fan and loved last years show. Please help me
like this years.
Lesley Edwards
LEE:
http://www.thisisbigbrother.com
-----------------
Helen Hawken's response.
Dear Lesley
Thank you very much for your email which I will pass on to the task team for you.
We're always interested to hear people's comments and ideas for the programme. Of course each year creates different dynamics. Part of the reason that this year the tasks don't take as long is because audience and focus group research strongly suggested that most people last year found them boring. The housemates themselves felt that they were pointless and didn't have enough jeapardy. Another thing that people commented on last year was the fact that none of the housemates spoke freely and openly in the diary room, particularly at nomination time. I think, and I hope you agree, that they're using the diary room much more freely this time, coming in voluntarily, which they hardly ever did last year, and giving very frank reasons for their nominations. Remember that by this time last year Penny was still in the house, it is still very early days.
I hope that you'll keep watching and enjoy the rest of the series.
best wishes
helen hawken
-------------------
What do you think of her comments? I for one am surprised that they got feedback last year that audiences found the tasks boring. Not one person I have spoken to expressed this view. I can see the point that there was not enough jeopardy in them, but surely they could make the penalties for losing the task greater while still allowing them to prepare for them during the week.
Post your comments on here and I'll send this thread on to Helen to look at. Now's the chance to air your views.
