[bonzobravo]

Well the three main ones for me are lack of intresting conversations, Alex and the falseness of people like Jonny.

I am going for the lack of intresting conversations, a lot of this I blame on Jonny. There were too many games and too much drinking.

[splodge0]

I would list
1. The divide/bars
2. Meaningless tasks
3. Too much money for booze.

[Amy]

I agree with you Splodge i think it was down to the changes like the bars and the tasks

[bonzobravo]

Controversial, I liked the bars.

[BigSister]

I think the tasks and the bars

I didnt really like the bars and the tasks some of them were boring

[Mairi]

Originally posted by splodge0
I would list
1. The divide/bars
2. Meaningless tasks
3. Too much money for booze.

I agree 100% with Splodge.

It's very hard to pick just one of the above as I feel they all contributed equally so I'll abstain from voting on this one.

[bananarama]

None of the above reasons really!!! The main reason it was not as good as BB2 for me is the lack of any real genuine romance that people could be still interested in after the show was over.

Some of the BB3 characters might get it together but I think it would be more of a case of animal lust rather than human love.

Having said that I did enjoy the BB3 series. But there is no one that I am interested in after the event. It's left a vacuum where as BB2 didn't.

[bonzobravo]

Don't you need animal lust initailly before you love someone. I do!

[bananarama]

No. No. Not at all. But then we are all very different....

[Janette]

I don't think this year's housemates were as genuinely likeable as last year's lot, but I blame the dis-interest mainly on the lack of decent tasks and the mega amounts of money they had to spend.

Last year, Paul lost a stone in weight because of the rationing, this year has shown to be the opposite for several housemates. Too much food and far too much alcohol made them lazy.

Last year the tasks were team building and supportive, this year they were selective and unfair.

To be honest, i don't think last year's housemates would have bonded as well as they did if they had been put in this year!

[James]

The problems of BB3 were many and varied so it is not easy to pinpoint one thing. However the potential for the series was limited from day one because of the mix of housemates. They chose younger, brasher and coarser housemates. Some of the show's other troubles like not enough interesting conversations are a direct result of this.

Also, because it is the third series, the contestants are much more savvy about what would make them unpopular and what could make them popular, so it seemed much more false.

Add to that the increased manipulation of events inside the house, from the producers, and you’ve got a recipe for less real reality TV.

It’s been said that many of the changes (the Saturday night live task for instance) were a result of Channel 4 – rather than Endemol - meddling with format because they needed a hit to shore up their financial position. I think there might be truth in this. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

[Tonto1278]

The bars and Saturday Task show didn't help.
The other thing was that there was no one apart from Jade and Alex that I genuinely liked! I mean I didnt feel like i got to know the housemates unlike the other 2 series!
In a way its like a soap with all your fave characters in and 2 people can't carry a show!

Well thats my opinion!

[susieq]

I hated the bars, I found them very divisive and not conducive to team building or rapport. I also thought there weren't any particularly interesting conversations either - perhaps this was the mix of contestants. Last year, it appeared like we were eavesdropping on people having a drink and a chat in their living room, this year it was like watching a play and the HM's were all actors within it, and were speaking their lines.

I thought this year's BB seemed 'fake' whereas last year's seemed more about real people. Don't know if that makes any sense!!

[bonzobravo]

Yep Susieq I wouldn't disagree with you there, but that is the problem the producers have. The more popular it gets the more 'aware' the contestants will become.

[Romantic Old Bird]

I think all of the above are right to a greater or lesser extent.

The perverse thing about it is that Channel 4 have probably held a post mortem discussion on BB3 and spent the session patting themselves soundly on the back. As Mark Frith said on GMTV, to them the entire experience had been 'a triumph'. Massive viewing figures, increased revenue, and most amazingly of all, hardly a fraction of the disgusted complaints from appalled viewers that you might have expected.


I think they consequently produced forgettable contestants and a very forgettable winner (sorry Kate fans). However, what do they care? It's not the contestants they care about. They don't generally speaking stay on Channel 4.

As an aside - Craig was forgettable too. Pleasant but bland. I agree with Bonzo, his 'tackling' of Nick made him a hero, but why? He had already been exposed. Tom was the person who rumbled him, as I remember, and I think several of the others were just as eloquent. But:- BB1 was important for being the first.

In summation:

I don't think the housemates were as pleasant, but we didn't have a chance to really get to know the sober rational personalities of any of them.

Not all the BB2 housemates were pleasant, but they were much more real to us.

BB3 was a smash hit

They are going to go for it again

[bigbrofan]

Hi,

I fIll most that it was todo with the bars they really did make BB3 boring and i hope they do not introduce them back in BB4.

[bonzobravo]

I liked the divide because in my opinion it brought aspects of the housemates personalities that they would rather remain hidden. It also forced people to make friendships with housemates, which may not have occured if the divide was not there.

My only complaint is the housemates who where on the rich side had access to booze, luxury items etc. So it was easier to portay them as being funny, particularly Alex whom is only funny when drunk. In my opinion with out the divide Spencer would have beaten Alex. But overall the divide gets a thumbs up from me. However the divide should be scrapped for next year. It is was good but only for a one off.

[LEE]

it brought aspects of the housemates personalities that they would rather remain hidden

I was never a fan of the divide, and even though I sort of agree with your above quote bonzo, I also think that there were other facets of their personality that didn't get shown because of the divide. I hated the confrontational nature of this years and think that the divide was hugely to blame for that, along with the huge quantities of alcohol avaliable.

I really hope that BB4 returns to a more normal format, but I do ot have a particularly good feeling about it.

[bonzobravo]

Yes, but that is what the producers want, they wanted this years BB to be known for different reasons then the previous. I can guarantee next years BB will be completley different again. They manipulate the contestants, so that certain aspects of their personalties come out. That is why BB2 was the best, because there was not as much manipulation!

[WILDCHILD]

A lot of people seem to think that the people of BB3 werent as real and were quite false but I think it is the other weay around and the people in BB2 were less real - and that is not a negative comment.
How many Brians and Helens and Naz's have you met in your life time? Probably very few.
How many Jonnys and Kates and PJ'S have you met? Probably a lot more.
I found the contestants in BB3 people you would meet in real life and althugh that is nothing against Jonny or Kate as I found them likable people, I preferred watching Helen and Brian who were a bit more uinique and individual other thatn people who kind of watch in normal life.
I dont think the bars was the main problem of BB3 but it definetely hindered it. It was probably the expectations people had of it after such a brilliant series beforehand what with Paul and Helen. It was a good series though, it just wasnt beaten by Big Brother 2.

[bananarama]

I agree WILDCHILD with exeption of "Alex" the rest were just too normal. BB2 had more unique characters. But I often wonder how much praise BB2 would have had if the H/P relationship had never occured. Were BB just lucky that year....

[kaphc]

I voted for the mix of housemates but I think the tasks and the amount of shopping money were important factors too.

The mix of housemates this year was more like a club 18-30 holiday, with the exception of Alex and Sandy. The housemates were all generally much younger, in their early 20s with a couple of people in their 30s. On BB2 there was more balance with various ages, some early 20s, some mid-late 20s, some early 30s, some later 30s. This gave the BB2 house a more "family" atmosphere, whereas the BB3 house had a "student holiday" feel too it.

The tasks were also a contributing factor. I think it was a good idea to have live tasks, especially when they decided who went on the rich/poor sides. However, that should only have been a mini-task and then they should have gone straight into a 3-day "proper" task (or maybe two separate tasks for each side) to determine access to food budgets / treats etc. I said before the start of BB3 that I would like to have seen some sort of "gambling" element to the tasks, where the % gambled on completion of the task was based on how difficult the task was. So they could have picked an easy task and gambled 10% or a hard task and gambled 60% / 70%. I think the best task was probably the last one with the eggs, where there was a lot of skill and a bit of gambling involved.

Which brings me onto the amount of money they had available. £400 was maybe fair enough when the group was large and before the bars went up. But afterwards, £400 between 4 or 5 people for a week was ridiculous! So too much money got spent on alcohol (prob what the producers wanted, sadly) and the rest, as we know, is history.

I think it's a good thing that BB3 was different from BB2, but apart from the last couple of weeks, it definitely wasn't as good.

I agree with a lot of what people said. I didn't vote because no one reason is more significant than others, but a few points:

Why do people keep going on about people, especially Jonny being false. Go to any pub, you'll find a Jonny. He's the lad who acts like a clown because he wants people to like him. That's not false it's the way he is, he's a showoff. I enjoyed watching Jonny, he was determined to enjoy himself and treated the whole thing like a holiday. What's wrong with that?

The bars certainly brought about certain forms of behaviour. The bitching was brought about by the possibility of conspiracies because certain people could not walk in. Those most comfortable with the divide, such as Adele and Alex, were the ones I did not like. I felt that Jonny and Kate were the least comfortable with the divide, and that's why I empathised with them.

Overall, though, if we had a genuine "Paul and Helen mark 2" or another Brian, we would be raving about series 3. We didn't, so we're not!

And that was the difference!

[dizzy bint]

I think it was a combination of the listed reasons, I haven't voted either. The fact that they had so little to do in the first two weeks didn't help. The BB3 contestents showed little real interest in getting to know each other, when I watch the long conversations the housemates on BB2 had they are like a breath of fresh air. There was no group bonding as such in BB3 and for that I blame BB.

Overall BB2 was much better for so many reasons.

[Kaz]

I couldn't agree more, dizzy bint.

The fact that you, I, and loads of other members of this forum still regularly watch and enjoy their BB2 tapes speaks volumes as to why BB2 was better than BB3.

I have loads of BB3 taped, and have no desire to look at it again yet.