h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Who's your fav. Dax?

I like jonny and sandy cause they're both funny and I like to see lee with his shirt off

yes and we all know why

I'd like to see Kate/Sunita with their tops off...

kate maybe

suninta it's not gonna happen unless they start showing ootage from the shower

Sunita's leaving, noooooo!

maybe she has no intention of leaving and is just creating a little drama

Nah, she's definately leaving unfortunately. They're just having the farewell party now...

Sunita, you break my heart

But who will replace her?

I've enjoyed Big Bruv since the very beginning. It's not reality TV in any real sense. I find it psychologically interesting watching how people react to voluntarily losing some of their perceived rights and subjecting themselves to the authority of a faceless "Big Brother".

This year we seemed to have a fairly even mix of people, with Sandy and Jade at polar opposites of the madness spectrum. But what I've found interesting is seeing how people play the game. Sandy has distanced himself - a "muhammad to the mountain" approach. This means that he's out of the way for most of the bitching, but can quietly influence people like Alex, who has slowly grown madder and madder with his obsessions. Requests which would be fair and normal on the outside are magnified to insane proportions by the cameras and the situation. Jade, meanwhile, has been alternating between arch bitch and "little babba", standing up for herself and asserting her personality one minute, then retreating and cowering under the protection of her housemates the next - it's this tactic that helped her survive the first eviction to Lynne's detriment.

In previous contests, the outright winner hasn't really emerged until week four or five. At the moment, Spencer seems a dead cert to win, with Jonny coming second. But tomorrow, the housemates face their first serious challenge - the literal division of the house into luxury and poverty dependent on the outcome of a game of basketball hoop-shooting.

My oh my. If Alex survives tonight, do we think he'll enjoy the prospect of being stuck on the wrong side of the house with just cold water and basic provisions?

Chortle...

Jimster

I do think Alex will probably go tonight, but I think it'll be more interesting if Alison leaves (I'm not particularly fond of her either). I've never been a Spencer fan, he gets on my nerves quite a bit, but he is quite funny in his completely non-plussed attitude of 'who gives a toss'.

I think Big Brother is the ultimate reality TV format, and I've followed it since before it was even launched here (I read all the press about the programme in Holland, and then foresaw that it was going to be huge here - I created the newsgroup free.uk.tv.bigbrother). It works because it is pure voyuerism and psychological observeration, without pretending to be too much of a 'game'show (the tasks aren't important, unlike Survivor and so on). Also, the 'house' format works a lot better than the 'island' format where people are much more aware of the cameras.

Still, the biggest problem with BB is that it's often quite undramatic (though there is quite a bit of drama), especially on the live feeds. What I'd like to do is create a reality TV show based on the Truman Show - where there's one 'housemate' who is thrown into the set and left to behave naturally, and then a whole cast of actors who are briefed by the production team. It'd be much easier to engineer some good storylines, the programme would become a cross between Big Brother and a TV soap...

Frankie
(who should never be allowed to become a TV producer)

Yeah! More BB addicts.

So Alison has gone. Personally that`s what i hoped would happen. She didn`t really bother me (except for the whole calling a taxi thing). Keeping Alex and Sandy in will keep the fueding going. I have no doubt that they will both be up for eviction again next week. It will be interesting to see if anyone else is up with them.

Who do we think is going to win?? Why did Sandy turn out to be such a miserable git? What has everyone suddenly got against Jonny? These thoughts keep me awake at night! I would like to see Jonny win, but I don't think he will. I think it will be Spencer, or maybe even Alex-we all hated him at first, but how watchable he has turned out to be.

Totally agree. Jonny should win. It`s still possible but Spencer and Alex are still in with a good chance. Alex is actually quite a nice guy once you get past his nagging. He really cracks me up too. The house would be lifeless without him.

Lee is a certainty to be evicted this week...hooray!! He is self-centered, smug and completely boring. Sophie seems to have backed herself into a corner now. Who`s she gonna turn to when Lee goes?

I liked Sandy. That he found Big Brother boring and thus left just confirms what a sensible, honest and well-adjusted guy he is.

Hmmmm if Lee goes I wonder if Sophie will try to win Spencer's affections from Kate? I can't make up my mind what I think of Sophie though, I would go so far as to say I'd like to see her evicted because I don't find her particularly interesting to watch. I want somebody I can either love or hate!
And what about Adele, is it only me who thinks she's turned out to be a bit of a snake in the grass?

I can't believe some people are so dismissive of this year's lot. I am hooked!

The most interesting person, in terms of the power struggles in there, is jade. Although she's had blazing rows (to the point of tears) with Alex on both weekends before nomination day, this week she seems to have completely forgotten this by the time monday came around and ended up nominating two other people for quite unfair reasons. She's been quite prepared to bitch about the other housemates, but not had the sense to remember which ones have genuinely upset her. She's also very easily influenced - Alex, Sandy and Adele have all cottoned on to this and convinced her to vote for people they don't like. strangely, she's acccused Jonny of being the manipulative one, just because he's tried to make an effort with her.

Adele's another interesting one - she's playing a very clever game where she 'confides' in people to establish an element of trust between them. Sometimes, this takes the form of slagging off another housemate - or as she did with Jade this week, slag off everyone on the other side of the house divide - other times it's a personal confession, such as last night's revelations to jonny and sophie about her own sexuality.

And who'd have thought that Alex would actually flourish on the poor side? his moaning has subsided and he's become a real team player. Good for him!

(Even though he's still a sly manipulator... )

The strangest thing too, is trying to work out whether each housemate is being more two-faced to their fellow inmates or to Big Brother. having been told that they risk eviction if they don't give serious reasons for nominating, it could well be that people like Lee have lied to Big Brother just to get their nomination across, but have been quite genuine to the people they've nominated.

Oh, and what *was* Jade doing to PJ under the covers the other night??!!

I can't believe it's only the third week...

Jimster

I think it's been quite an interesting series so far - though is it me or is the quality of the programming down quite a bit?

Alex has definately flourished over the past few days. He had previously come across as just a miserable git, walking away whilst in the middle of an argument, refusing to listen to other people. But more recently he's been a lot cooler. The stuff he said about the chickens was very funny - made BB look a bit foolish, and he's been a lot more friendly with the other housemates. Even seems to be getting on with Jade more now. Perhaps being away from Sandy will do him good though.

Congrats to Sandy for 'escaping' - I couldn't make up my mind whether he was a funny, laid back guy or just a mean b*****d, but his exit was good fun.

I don't really feel strongly about this week's eviction - think I'd probably prefer Johnny to go, though it won't happen.

I was suprised at yesterday's programme though. There's all this stuff on the website about how they *broke* the rules by crossing the divide, exchanging jumpers, wine, etc... but they just seemed to skip past all that... Will it be on tonight?

It'll be on tonight.

And you can't seriously prefer Lee-the-narcisist to Jonny-joker. Or are you following Graham Norton's example and voting all the nice, sane people out and leaving the mutants in to see if one of them kills one of the others?