[kaphc]

I think the BB team have learned some big lessons in the past two years about the choice of housemates and the set-up inside the house.

The choice of housemates has to be spot on with a good mix of people who are easy to get to know. In BB4, the boys, just came across as just a bunch of lads in the first two weeks while we all tried and work out who was who and the girls were "cast" early on into types, e.g. the fun girl, the bitchy girl, the motherly girl, the hippy girl etc. In BB5, it was better because each person was very distinct and it was easy to work out who was who.

Then, no matter what the choice of housemates is, there has to be a decent set-up inside the house, with no daft gimmicks for the sake of trying to liven things up (like BB4 lurched from one desperate idea to another!). The theme has to be set up from the start and applied consistently - Evil Big Brother was great because it took the show back to not knowing what to expect, like the early days of BB1. In the end, the show was bigger than the contestants, which is the way it should be.