I never got round to watching last year's BBAU series, but the general consensus seems to be that it was well liked.

What are the differences between that series and the more recent series we've had?

I only watched the final just to see what it was like, and I actually liked it. Nice to see a HM from the UK getting to 2nd place there too. It was really feel-good. It's similar to Italian BB in the way they speak to the house mates for a lot longer than here. In the UK, they just speak to the house for the announcement for eviction. In BBAU and Grande Fratello they ask them questions about the weeks events in the house and all of that.

In the BBAU final, they also showed the finalists what they have missed in the outside world which was pretty cool. Also, the crowd were great. I know it was the final, but the atmosphere was electric and positive.

Here is the final video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TSUhGouNKE

That finale's awesome!

Watched a bit of BBAU and it was very good.

Some of the changes include a dedicated nomination room where people can see who's nominating but not hear which proved successful, also Big Brother was a lot more strict than the UK one - there was even a naughty corner

Nominations is one of the bigger differences,they use a points system which means almost always theres more than 2 people up.
BBAUS has changed format a fair bit last year because it was broadcast on a different channel after ch10 cancelled the show some years ago.
They used to have a head of household that issued chores like toilet cleaning,bread maker,feeding the animals etc and they used to have a games night which i loved and a BB supermarket to do their shopping but now all thats changed but it still feels fresh and different to our series but the downer is they no longer have a live feed.

Its certainly worth watching and it starts very soon.

The positivity shown by the eviction crowd and general upbeat feeling of the show really does highlight where our BB has taken a wrong turn.
I'm looking forward to the new season of BB:AU

I wasn't too impressed with the winner I must say. I thought they were rather two-faced and bitchy, but I could understand why the audience related to their more positive side.

Overall it was a great series though. They borrowed some of our twists/tasks, such as the house split from BBUK13 with two teams competing to gain possession of the house.

I think the nomination process is a great idea, having 5 points to split between the two housemates you nominate. Also they had the 3 or more with the most points facing the public vote (who then vote to save), which I think needs to be brought in to BBUK, because head-to-head evictions don't work that well anymore.

The evictions had a fun atmosphere, where pretty much 99% of the time the crowd were cheering. Though they got a little bit giddy and laughed like hyenas at any mildly amusing thing. But if it's a choice between that and booing and chanting, then I'll take the hyenas.

Am I right in saying that the HMs were more "normal" than the UK HMs, as in they were there for the experience and not to try and get fame? Were they themselves or were most of them gameplayers trying to say/do different things that they thought would gain favour with the public?

Also, was it a vote to evict or vote to save?

Apart from the specific things like the secrets task, there were three big things that stood out for me.

1. One big difference was how strict BB was with the HMs. The BB voice is always very firm and commanding, no joking with the HMs. HMs were really kept in line, and anyone who broke little rules would be sent to a punishment room to do menial tasks like finding a needle in a haystack. When you think about how bratty the HMs were in the last serious of BBUK, there was absolutely none of that in BBAU. None of the HMs disliked this or complained about it.

2. There was also the nominations super power. Each evicted HM could nominate an existing HM to have the "super power" at nominations time. This would be something that would give them a slight advantage, like knowing the points tally or having extra points to nominate with. It was often enough to change at least one of the people up for nomination.

3. And there was the "captain's quarters" a luxury suite off the main house. Every week there was a challenge and the winner got to take a friend to spend the night there. It worked with girl friends, guy friends and romantic couples.

I'd like to see these elements in the BBUK house - but I'd also like to be surprised!

It was a mix of experience and fame. Unlike the UK, there's less fame to be had from being an HM. Like, being a regional breakfast radio host is the sort of thing ex-HMs end up doing, so it doesn't seem to attract desperate fame whores. All of the HMs were your typical extrovert HM types, but a lot of them came across as quite ordinary people.

Most like a typical BBUK HM was Layla, who was actually from the UK. She had apparently auditioned for BBUK previously, and she's currently in the Australian Celebrity Apprentice. There were moments when she seemed to be doing a Jade Goody style "dumb girl" act, but she was also sweetly goofy and charming which won her many fans.

And it was a vote to save.

I think BBUK is better. It's almost as if the audience isn't allowed an opinion on the BBUS one. Never any booing.

BBAU was brilliant last year. Far better than ours. It was like a breath of fresh air. Far too many differences to list here, but the main one, is that nominations are done in a glass, sound-proofed booth... with all other housemates present, seated outside the booth. They can see everything, but not hear the nominations. Plus, everyone has 5 points and have to nominate 2 people, splitting the votes between the 2 (i.e. 4pts to 1 and 1 pt to the other, or 3 and 2.) The top 3 are up for the public vote. Oh, and the percentage of the 3 HMs is shown throughout the eviction programme, except which percentage is whose (except immediately after eviction.)

Watch it this year to see,

I forgot... there's no swearing or smoking allowed. HMs are punished for transgressions (the naughty corner.)

Last season was a vote to save. However, when the programme was on Channel 10, it started off as a vote to evict (even the final was a vote to evict, with the winner being the housemate with the fewest votes to evict).

Seasons 6 and 7 featured the introduction of the merge vote: viewers could either vote to save or vote to evict, and the housemate with the most eviction votes (or fewest save votes) after the votes were merged was evicted. Even the final was like this too; viewers had to vote to save or evict, with the winner being the one with the most votes to save (or fewest votes to evict).

Season 8 originally started with the viewers nominating, with the three housemates with the most viewers votes facing eviction, with the housemates deciding who would go through the traditional three-point nomination method. However, due to declining ratings, the original vote to evict method was implemented through to the final.

Another difference: BBAU demanded proper reasons for nominations. Once Layla tried to nominate someone because she felt they were playing a game. BB replied, "Layla, Big Brother is a game."

You could tell she was from here. It's something a BBUK HM would say and here, that reasoning would be allowed.

I loved BB Australia last year, I'm so glad I went ahead and watched it.

The housemates were great and most of them, Angie aside, were really likeable. The positive energy from the crowd make eviction nights a whole lot better. I also really liked how they nominated, they turned nominations into a live and exciting event and they nominated with a points system and they did so in a special room. We should do that here. Nominations are dull and tedious in the diary room.

I think the only things that aren't allowed as nomination reasons in the UK are as follows:

1. A very weird and quirky reason for nomination that makes absolutely no sense.

OR...

2. Because they haven't been nominated, and they should have their turn.

Big Brother in Oz used to be even crueller in previous seasons. The housemates had two minutes to nominate, and they had to give valid reasons, and Big Brother would often scold them for overexplaining their reasons for their nominations or for trying to make their nominations collective (i.e. saying that a housemate's behaviour bothers the entire group is unacceptable, but saying that a housemate's behaviour makes you feel uncomfortable and like walking on eggshells around them is). If they failed to give adequate nominations, Big Brother would typically penalize them with one nomination point.

I thought Angie was an amazing HM and more likeable than some of the others who seemed quite sly like stacey zoe and michael and on twitter she is nice,bubbly and fun.

I found as always with BBAUS the male HMs were deadly boring with the exception of bradley and michael.
They raved about the ultimate boring hm josh.

I liked Layla,she was fun,some people get to hung up on other peoples ignorance of basic education and knowledge.
Sure sometimes she put an act on to act dumb but most of the time she was like a lot of kids today all around the world who have no interest or knowledge about things we were taught from an early age.

On the nominations side of things BBAUS has always been ahead of the UK in its style,presentation and entertainment value.
They make a whole show based around nominations.

The nominations shows used to be very boring. In later season I gave up watching them because they had so many ad breaks and the nominations reason were never very good. They did hit the mark in the latest season though and the nominations room and nominating visually in front of each other was a winner.

This lot of housemates seemed to be a good pick. It seems they really put the audition participants through their paces to weed out the try hards who fake having personality during auditions.

IMO this was probably our bitchiest season. It was also full of people who could make their own fun, which is something I've always liked about BBUK housemates.

IMO they're a little more careful with the psych evaluations than BBUK which makes the show a little safer but a tad more boring than BBUK (rarely do our HMs do something to get removed which says to me people with poor impulse control aren't selected but probably are for BBUK to provide entertainment and sometimes that backfires)

We did the naughty corner years ago and frankly it wore thin very quickly. All the shows seemed to be based on punishment, mainly for forgetting to wear their microphones. It was bloody boring and frustrating. This last season saw the punishment room not being overused for TV. I suspect it was used at times and not shown because in the editing room they realised it was boring footage and given the good housemates there was lots of other footage to choose from. I think the entertaining people made the naughty room good this time around.

All in all it was a very good season. I was pleasantly surprised. The only thing I disliked was the producers behaviour. He kept promising unique tasks yet nearly every week was a recycled task from BBUK and other countries. Which is fine in the grand scheme of things, they were great tasks hence worth replicating, but don't mislead your viewers.

I loved it.

The nominating process was really well done. It was fascinating to watch the HMs form a cool group and realize over a couple of weeks that the viewers didn't like the "cool group". Some of the HMs seemed to repent for their cruel behavior and seek atonement. (I don't know if the repentant cool HMs continued being nice after the show)

So would you class last year's BBAU more like BB1-BB4, or from BB5 onwards?

There's ALWAYS more than 2 up, and they have had that system for quite a while there too. It means characters keep in longer. Considering we are told all the different BB franchises meet and discuss what they do I find it totally puzzling that the version here has never used that system. Without it Estelle and Angie would have been evicted earlier and the series would have been more of a flop than a success. This rule makes a huge difference.

Yes..Its odd why they have never tried that system here,especially since we moved to a vote to save..whats the point in VTS if theres just 2 HMs up.

The reason I said almost always more than 2 up was I had forgot if they were using that system during BBAU 1-4.
I know BB5 over there was a big change with the introduction of things like friday night live games resulting in a sort of HoH.
Just could not remember if they had always had a points system for nominations.

Not being nasty but I think Neighbours and home and away have skewered my view of Australia because there was not one attractive housemate in that video. I did like the energy but it seemed a bit x-factorish imo