More to do on international BB shows?
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The ClubHouse: General Discussion Archives: Archive Three: More to do on international BB shows?

Katrina

Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 09:15 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I notice lots of posters are commenting on this group acting like a bunch of high schoolers (or junior high schoolers). It sure does seem like they're a bunch of adults trapped at some kind of weird summer camp without a lake, boats, forest, etc. They really don't have much interesting or useful to do, beyond preparing meals and doing a few minor chores.

Remember how in the beginning (on BB1) they were supposed to work together to grow/raise their own food, conserve t.p., schedule themselves into the shower before they ran out of hot water, budget the grocery money/list as a group, be ready to jump up at a moment's notice in the middle of the night to follow Big Brother's orders, complete labor-intensive challenges, etc.?

When the producers pulled all of that from the show for the second and third seasons, it seems all they came up to replace it with were goofy carnival games. I keep hearing that BB is such a big hit in European countries. Does anyone know what they do there to keep it interesting? Is it less high school-ish over there than it is here? Is there something that should be happening on American Big Brother that isn't???

Gentoo

Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 09:21 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Could be that Americans are just immature

;p heh

Bastable

Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 09:24 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Troll!

Is Britchick around? She could tell us.

Kador

Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 09:27 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, that's all part of Shapiro's BS changes for BB2 and now 3. They don't have the big weekly challenges to keep them busy and working together. Instead Shapiro decided to do stupid short challenges that they can easily edit for the broadcast shows. Everybody was so bored silly with BB1 that I guess they thought this would be more interesting. I think the main problem with BB1 was the casting, and they should have kept the same basic rules but done a better job casting. Instead they revamped the whole thing. They lucked out last year with Will and in some ways Nicole, and I think they assumed the better ratings were due to the new format rather than the one or 2 evil, yet interesting people in the house

Angelbleu

Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 09:32 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I have watched some and they have elaborate challenges to win groceries for the week....they have to keep busy on them all week to get them done in time....like prepareing skits and memorizing stuff...and they get punished if they break rules....and Big Brother was very strict with them...no coddling...they got punished for not wearing their mic or whispering or running hair dryer while they talked....etc.

Bastable

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 09:23 am EditMoveDeleteIP
What I've seen of the Australian BB has the hamsters actually SALUTING each and every time Big Brother comes on the loudspeaker! Every times BB makes any kind of annoucement, everyone has to stand stock still and salute until it's finished! So creepy!

Meanwhile, here in America Tonya is smearing her hoo-hahs with peanut butter. (Come to think of it, maybe that's even scarier.)

Britchick

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 09:46 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Peanut butter hoo-hahs definitely more scary :)

There has been criticism of UK BB this season because they moved from the system described by Angelbleu of tasks that would keep them all occupied for several days, to a weekly live task done during the half-hour show on Saturday night. This left them with little to do the rest of the week and they have all complained of being bored (this is a feature of every BB I think). However, the rich/poor divide meant that the poor side had to look after the chickens, cook over a barbecue for everything (v. time-consuming), tend to, pick and eat the vegetables from the garden etc. so they had more to fill their time. Also, in the last 3 or 4 weeks, BB has given them more time consuming tasks like putting on a puppet show (including making puppets and memorising the script), learning ballroom dancing, and currently they are doing a 2 day task where they have one bedroom set up as a 70s style rollerdisco and whenever a klaxon sounds, they have to rush into their protective knee/elbow pads, helmets, rollerblades and get dancing in the rollerdisco within 3 minutes. The klaxon can sound at any time between 9am and 1am so that's keeping them busy some of the time!
The tasks which take several days are definitely better in my mind than the live tasks of the kind BB2 had in the US and UK BB has had this year.

Kitt

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 11:28 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I think the main difference is the people chosen. I can only compare the UK and US, I haven't seen any others, but the UKBB has very real people, even those who appear to be chosen for their looks or outragaous attitudes tend to have something else of substance that eventually shows itself. It seems particularly this year's USBB has just a bunch of actors or wannabe celebrities. The UK people are more "average", more easy to relate to, and therefore more interesting just being themselves, imho.

In the UK there is also a cable channel that shows the happenings at the BB house live for several hours a day (some days last season I think it was almost 24 hours). That means people can spend their evenings "with" the BB cast if they've got nothing better to do! Plus remember for the most part the European shows are shown only in their individual countries, so it's like California having it's own show, NY having it's own show, with no annoying timezone problems.

And... in the UK the evictees are nominated by the other houseguests, but the public decides which of the nominess actually goes. That means the viewers feel they have a lot more say about what goes on, and it's not so easy for a clique like chilltown or this "six" in USBB3 to have their own way and run the show.

Slagar

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 12:42 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
i've watched the past australian series and am currently watching the on-going uk series.

the difference between the continents are vast, the main being the coverage. both the uk and aus shows had daily half hour recap shows, something the us version is sorely missing. in addition the aus show had a 1 hour weekly late night show called "uncut" where they showed the everything (the shower in the australian house was nothing but glass and mirror.) the uk show has a daily half hour show called big brother's little brother which delves deeper into the housemates foibles.

the tasks for the aussie show were on a weekly basis. they had a week to complete a task, whether it be latch hooking a rug, being superheroes on call, manning a radio station for 24 hours straight, manning a bunker 24 hours a day (the saluting was part of this task)... they were much more in depth and harder to pass. they missed nearly ever week and suffered not having a food budget or hot water. the uk show has live tasks once a week which so far haven't been that pressing. the current one, which i think was stolen from the aussie show, had them having to get to the a built in roller rink and skate whenever an alarm rings.

nominations were done internally and the public voted out the houseguest. there was absolutely no talking about nominations allowed in the house, housemates were warned a number of times about this, and they had to give legitimate reasons for the nomination, as in "why would evicting this person make my time better in the house." i liked that format much better.

i am very disappointed with the us version. three days a week is not enough time to get to know the houseguests, esp. with the heavy editing.

anyone know why they chose this format? it's not like cbs would be giving anything up to fit a half hour show in their summer schedule.

Jello

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 01:11 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Just got back from the UK and I caught a few episodes of their Big Brother. The rules confused me re kicking people out but it appears the TV audience makes the call; that alone probably accounts for bigger numbers. The host is much better than Julie (i.e., she is actually a living, breathing, palpably enthusiastic human being). The episodes, while more frequent, are shorter and the editing seemed sharper, better scenes and yet you didn't get the sense that they were constantly trying to edit a character (although I am sure that goes on). As in the the US, most of the "housemates" were in their 20s and fairly "attractive" but for some reason the possibility of actual sex taking place seemed a lot more tangible. There was a pretty good villain (although I understand she is now in the process of being "redeemed" as they say in reality watchspeak), Jade, who talked major trash behind everyone's back and who vaguely resembled Ms. Piggy if Ms. Piggy was a bartender on Eastenders. Finally, they drink and swear and smoke endlessly, without sensorship; it's a little like a bar that just never ever closes and the conversations tend to be more "in the face" as opposed to "behind the back". Oh, and the big brother voice sounds funny and peevish and a bit like Hal the Computer's anal little brother who grew up to be a substitute teacher. Maybe I just liked the accents.

Britchick

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 02:45 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Am loving these discussions as I find it really interesting to have seen BB in the UK and US (and even the first episode ever of Aussie BB this year!).
I pretty much agree with everything Kitt said about why UK is better - and I say that as someone who was a big fan of US BB last year (Will! Nicole! Shannon and Hardy's toothbrush!). I think the audience participation is really crucial in the public interest, as well as having daily shows. In fact, E4 (the cable channel) shows BB coverage on average 20 hours a day! So we really do feel we know the housemates well...
Finally, the host in the UK is really fantastic, she's obviously a big fan and gets very excited about it all and makes you feel more involved than Julie Chen ever could (she is so lacking in charisma and interest).
There has always been an evil "character" in UK BB - we had Nasty Nick the first series (who was kicked out for cheating and being all-round weird) and this series the "baddie" mantle has passed from Alex to Jade to Adele to Tim ... it's massive fun so you all have the next 10 days to get into it as this is the penultimate week!!

Bastable

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 04:10 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I have like 10 channels of NBA, 10 channels of baseball, a gazillion golf channels... why can't I have just ONE Big Brother live feeds channel? I guarantee there would be more people watching that than the dusty exploits of Fuzzy Zoeller.

Katrina

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 06:42 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks for all of the answers -- the international shows sound much more interesting! Maybe US BB should import some foreign houseguests. I totally agree with you all that there is a real frequency problem this year. Saturday to Wednesday is a long time between shows, especially if they're hoping to hook casual viewers who aren't already devoted to the series. The glass and mirror shower scenario sounds interesting too, at least in the sense that you'd have to be pretty uninhibited to be game for that in the first place. As in, "super image conscious contestants need not apply."

Bastable, I totally agree with you that we've all got cable/satellite channels to spare and could use a live feeds channel. Especially with so many high school and college kids out of school for the summer.

It was interesting to read all of your perspectives on the international shows. Maybe we're just too much of a superficially packaged, TV oversaturated culture here to ever have it succeed and entertain the way it has in other countries?

Jesse

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 06:58 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks for all the great info . . . and it's not the foreign HGs the US should import . . . we should import the foreign PRODUCERS!

Kador

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 08:45 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, the first US BB HAD the original foreign producers (Endemol) and it was fairly universally agreed that they were the reason the first BB had such poor ratings.

Zeyna

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 08:47 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Now, I would LOVE to see an international mix of guests. That would be interesting to see..

Slagar

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 - 07:34 am EditMoveDeleteIP
during one of the clip shows the bbc did about the international shows it was mentioned that the BB Spain and BB Mexico exchanged houseguests.