Again, for me it was really the cast that carried it (this may get a bit long). Unfortunately I'd disagree that production was a step-up - there were still a lot of slip-ups and a lack of consistency. For example, they dropped the twist that was supposed to "change the game" two weeks in, basically meaning that they'd forked out thousands of pounds for a task garden with an empty house attached.
The tasks were also terrible - the only good task of the series was BBCorp, and even then they had to ruin it by playing nominations into the house. They still used the same pattern of "gunge!", "viewer survey with mostly negative questions!" (which in itself is an outside contact breach), "dilemma!", "who said what!", "label each-other!" etc, only this time it looked so cheap. They also still tried to created forced drama with said tasks which just isn't as enjoyable as natural drama between the housemates (the housemates have even
said themselves that they didn't really care about who was saying what about each other so really it's a wasted effort).
Updates from the house were at an all-time low. There weren't even any live tweets until someone emailed the production team and even then, they weren't available at weekends and there were no weekend press releases. Live Feed was also reverted back to 30 minutes on a Friday despite returning to an hour every weeknight for Celebrity Big Brother (peak Channel 5 favouritism).
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the series for what it was, but there's a lot to be desired from the current production team. This series was supposed to "evolve Big Brother for a new generation", but apart from a stellar cast, a few more DR nominations and a new eviction set/house extension, we basically got more of the same. Not to mention the fact that anything good about this series went out the window with CBB18.
Alex,
This was such a classic series
a step-up in production, less manipulation, the only thing that let this series down was live feed and tasks (although they did create drama.) Definetly up there with the best of all time. 
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