Where HMs have previously been told they are immune only for this to be later revealed as a falsehood the public have been "in on the twist".
However in this instance Big Brother went so far as to issue a News Item to the public which reaffirmed the immunity given to the PHMA, and then almost immediately reneged on that obligation after the final eviction line-up was known.
Observers can be forgiven for interpreting this sudden and unexpected reversal to be a cynical ploy to make the eviction result slightly less of a "one horse race" and generate more phone-vote revenue.
Had Steven been saved a furious three-way vote-off between Ash, Ashleigh and Pav would doubtless have been very lucrative indeed, and even the less evenly-balanced face-off of Ashleigh and Steven will get those who support Ashleigh voting furiously just to be sure Steven leaves. Without her in the mix, there is far less 'jeopardy' in the vote because on any measure Steven is a goner therefore much less incentive for anyone to bother spending their 50p unless they are fans of his and trying to stave off the seemingly inevitable.
All of which begins to look like the twist was a last-minute decision specifically engineered to put Ashleigh (who was, let's be frank, the most likely candidate of all the PHMAs to be chosen) into the eviction vote lineup. That, to me, smells a bit ripe, and it would smell ripe whether Mark or Chris or even Helen had found themselves "on the block" because of it.
Deceiving the HMS is a well-known ploy, however when you explicitly say one thing to the public only to renege on it, it looks like you're lying to us too, and creating the impression that the show is not only prepared to **** over the Housemates when it wants but will happily **** the public too is rather dangerous if you want to retain viewer loyalty.
Sadly, in any number of ways, this series has felt like the production team are giving us all the proverbial finger and really couldn't give a toss.