[brian3]

If any of you remember the channel 5 show wich tried to cash in on the early days of reality tv. This years series is very like it. The same tasks. guests from other reality shows.

[Omah]

BB11 is nothing like BTR - AFAIK, no HM has been a prominent reality TV "participant/contestant" .....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to...29#Contestants

and February 2004 was not "the early days of reality tv" :

The first reality show in the modern sense may have been the 12-part 1973 PBS series An American Family, which showed a nuclear family going through a divorce; unlike many later reality shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style. In 1974 a counterpart program, The Family, was made in the , following the working class Wilkins family of Reading. Other forerunners of modern reality television were the 1970s productions of Chuck Barris: The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, all of which featured participants who were eager to sacrifice some of their privacy and dignity in a televised competition. One Man and His Dog was a British Television series which began in 1976 featuring the participants of sheepdog trials. In 1978, Living in the Past recreated life in an Iron Age English village.

The series Nummer 28, which aired on Dutch television in 1991, originated the concept of putting strangers together in the same environment for an extended period of time and recording the drama that ensued. Nummer 28 also pioneered many of the stylistic conventions that have since become standard in reality television shows, including a heavy use of soundtrack music and the interspersing of events on screen with after-the-fact "confessionals" recorded by cast members, that serve as narration. One year later, the same concept was used by MTV in their new series The Real World and Nummer 28 creator Erik Latour has long claimed that The Real World was directly inspired by his show. However, the producers of The Real World have stated that their direct inspiration was An American Family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_television

ETA The BTR contestants had lots of alcohol every day - James Hewitt, in particular, used to get very, very drunk .....