A lot of the VTs had people banging on about how cut-throat and bloodthirsty they were, but... so? I assume it's been cast this way to fit in with the theme, but unlike with other more 'game'-centric versions, the mechanics of BBUK don't really lend themselves well to ruthlessness at all, do they? Is 'strategy' even accepted as a valid reason for nomination here? What with the 'no noms talk' rule and the public vote factor, what can a ruthless person really 'do' to improve their chances over a brainless floater?

Is this casting theme just in the hopes that people will make mean decisions when they get the powerful housemate role, or does this change in casting actually portend a similar change in the game mechanics? The emphasis seems a bit odd otherwise...?

I thought basically the same,when I heard of it a few weeks back I thought HOH..but like u say,it's open noms talk ,POV,Gameplay, Stategy is needed,not what British voting public like...it didn't work out that well when they tried it over here before..i quite like the US version, but that doesn't rely on a public vote.

If it starts off that way,I bet the producers chicken out in a couple of weeks and it back to the same old same old.

Probably yeah,it's not been explained yet as far as I know,but the OP is right they were definetly pushing the power trip soundbites,..sounds like they are going for it in some shape or form,and the contestants seem to know already...

I miss the QuackPack

To me, the more obvious tweak was the stress on maturity/life experience. They may still be famewhores, but they're not famewhores who've been sponging off their parents for the entirety of their lives. Nobody is going to be able to skate by on ignorance this time, and use that to get out of helping out. Hopefully that also means they'll all have something more interesting to talk about day to day than how much they don't want to be nominated and who got felt up last night.

If it is a format tweak, it hasn't been thought through at all because they've brought back vote to evict and the public will be falling over themselves to get rid of the "gameplayers" as the GBP have traditionally hated them over almost any other kind of housemate.

Playing the game loses you the game.

If it is vote to evict it shows how clueless they are now, it seems to change every year.

Its true OP, try watching the Aussie version strategy is used and accepted much more

Well I was wondering that myself. 'The Power Trip' has been built up as some major thing to promote the launch of the show by having a theme. But there's been themes the show had before which just seemed to fizzle out into nothing and everyone forgot about the theme shortly after.

Of course you can nominate for strategy, someone who you think is a threat to you winning.
That's not against the rules.

It's just that whilst certain strategies may work during the nomination process, once the public vote comes into play it doesn't matter what game you've played or who's done what it's down to a good old fashioned popularity contest.

So whilst they can try and get ruthless housemates to try to work to avoid nomination, such game playing won't win them the show if they're unliked by the public.

It's another place they'd be better served to borrow from Australia's format. 6 up every time until it gets down towards the end, with a VTS. They do an otherwise meaningless contest before nominations, and the winner gets some little perks, but they also have to break a tie if there's a tie for 6th place. If someone has REALLY ticked off the public, they're more likely to go, but it also stops the numbers game from letting the house divide into two clear factions where the one with an extra person always wins.