This latest twist got me to thinking.

In the Channel 4 Big Brother years it did resemble more of a social experiment (at least in the early days).

In this case, I am talking predominantly of the secret room twist they pull out fairly regularly these days. Consequently, gone are the days when I thought this twist on proceedings to be true-blue (Fright Night BB being one of the last times I did think it was for real).

In this latest twist they let the housemates in on the fun in order to provoke typically angry reactions from the secret room "inmates".

BUT what is telling for me and made me wonder is, do they do this every time?
I mean, does anyone now think that whenever housemates are evicted to a secret room (unbeknownst to us viewers) they let the other housemates in on the act so that they can provoke arguments and the like)?

The housemates (be they celebrities or not) would of course participate as it means higher viewership for their show and to create buzz for themselves.

Big Brother on Channel 5 would not surprise me - they seem to only want to cause argument and conflict rather than let drama unfold naturally and organically.

I hope I have explained what I mean clearly lol.

I hope this isn't the case but this twist has really opened my eyes.

I can understand why some think it is scripted. It is scripted in the sense there is a direction that the producers want it to go in. With this task, it was quite open (for a change) in the sense that the rest of the housemates were let in on the big twist, which is usually just left for the public at the last minute.

it "resembled" but never was...
fight night was 10 years ago...

big brother has always been pre-planned tasks and bb actions on a pre-selected set of people who are likely to act an expected way on the back of those actions..

with the shorter televised hours (especially the lack of live footage of "nothing happening" AND the explosion of cheap reality actors replacing expensive daytime soaps more people are "aware" of structuring of tv and so are more aware of what BB HAS ALWAYS BEEN

if you think any tv programme gets invested in with "no idea if it will work" you are mad.
all tv is "planned" all tv is "structured" - ALL TV... investing millions to then have something that randomly entertains or not is clearly never going to happen. they cant afford to leave it to "chance" something happens... and they never have. they have got better at "knowing" what could work, but "tv appetite" changes and so slight modifications also have to happen that could be a risk if it is not in flavour... the time slot is highly competitive with itv2 for example churning out very easy laughs for simple viewing... and so if they left it to "chance" and it failed... people would switch over and not come back the next night

it was never a 'social experiment' its always been an entertainment show. I wouldn't say it was scripted but its definitely more manipulative than it was in the early years

It has always been scripted to a degree. Even back the first series, the highlights shows still followed 'storylines'. And of course, it is called Big Brother, so a certain degree of manipulation and control is inevitable.

That being said, the loss of the live feed was a huge disservice to the premise of the show. With the live feed, we felt like Big Brother. We were all seeing and all knowing and the highlights just served as mainly a catch up to those who didn't have time to watch a large amount of live feed. 'You decide' always used to make sense as a tagline. We were given all the information and could make our decisions on who to boot out of their based on informed decisions. When a contestant used to complain about depicted falsely on an edited show, we could all shout and point "Ahh live feed!"

In recent years, probably since the channel switch, it feels like we are more of a contestant kept in the dark and only fed what Big Brother wants us to know. With Farrah and Jenna in the secret room, we didn't really understand what we were voting for. I thought the whole weekend would be completely different. Apparently the joke was on us.

There are a lot more 'reality stars' and various others that have a huge awareness. They know that if they scream and shout it'll be more airtime and bigger bucks when they get out. It's definitely not true for all contestants, but certainly a few of them.

I feel the Highlights are now taken up of 45 mins of whoever shouts the loudest, not an actual representation if the housemates day. They don't spend 24 hours a day at each other's throats. I feel the live feed we get now is like a little slither of the show's original objective. I'm so glad there is still that, because it's something that to a high degree, can't be scripted. They can't control and manipulate too much. It's told me so much more about a lot of the housemates than 3 weeks if highlights. It's like a tiny little porthole that's still open, with a glimmer of reality shining in.

I see all of your points and it doesn't thrill me much.
I liked it more when it really was more of a social experiment, but I understand, to a degree, much of the 'storylines' would have been outlined by TPTB.
Oh well, the world we live in now I suppose.

In regard to the housemates being told about the secret room, the way that they acted and pretended to Jenna and Farrah that they didn't know, didn't look too different to how we usually see housemates react to somebody coming back into the house. So it wouldn't surprise me.
So I suppose it's possible. But as we haven't heard previous housemates mention that BB had told them that before I'd take that particular theory with a pinch of salt.

But in respect to it being scripted, I think that will be true. And no I don't mean that the housemates are given scripts to read. I just mean that BB will have a loose plan of how they want things to pan out and will try to force events to play out that way and try to encourage housemates to behave according to the character which has been set out for each particular housemate.
BB will know before filming who they want their heroes and villains to be and will do everything they can to try and make things play out that way.

As has been posted above by someone, nowadays the celebrities they choose seem to be made up of a very high proportion of reality TV 'stars'. These will tend to be people who will comply with playing up to a character which is expected of them. They probably won't need as much encouragement as other celebrities from other genres of entertainment.

I don't know about being scripted but I do wonder what happens in those downtimes that are never shown, are they being coached? Discussing tactics with each other?

One thing that is obvious is that BB has gone out of its way to save Jenna and Farrah and they seem to give Stevi and Chloe a lot of air time - could 5 have a show around them coming up? I didn't buy the weird action between them the other day when Stevi was avoiding her hugs and saying they should spend time apart, seemed very staged. Are they trying to make some drama over their relationship so we watch their spin off show (which we won't)?

And you keep on hearing stuff on the live feed before it is birdsong'd out that hint at stuff happening that we never find out about - for example Gail saying she met and hugged her (boy)friend in the Diary Room after an eviction

Plus according to the live feed last night during a fight either Chloe or Janice had shouted something about being with the same agent as someone else and that brings up a very revealing point and a question I've always asked - how much influence do talent agents have over the narrative of the show? I remember back in the c4 days that Noel whatshisface agency used to represent loads of the presenters and went on to represent some of the housemates. This happens a lot on comedy shows like panel shows too, that's why you always see the usual suspects on panel and chat shows, they're all with the same agents. Stinks to high heavens

Wow! Interesting post.