Watching the last couple of days the omens for the final week's entertainment don't look too great.

A large part of the reason for that is two of the key characters have been emasculated. Love them or hate them John and Gemma have played leading roles in this series.

John had the potential to be a great HM because of his arrogance, wit and wish to win (whatever he might say). He might well have been hated and failed but it would have been interesting to watch him try. Once he heard the crowd chants he clearly realised his chance of winning was gone and he has gone into "being there" mode. He still participates fully but he has all the appearance of simply tolerating what is going on around him with the odd bit of paternal advice until he collects his cheque.

Gemma has also changed since she was aware of the crowd and is now desperate to avoid anything likely to add to that. Obviously BB has been complicit in making her life easy to keep her there but she is no longer really competing in any real sense of the word. I would guess she is hoping by keeping her head down we forget the first three weeks.

I wonder how different the final week might have been if these two believed they were serious contenders and unaware of the views of the baying mob.

With all the residual Gemma hate on here it's sometimes easy to forget that Gemma has been milquetoast ever since her and Daniella's final walk out when they had a presumed word with the producers and then later extended an olive branch to Stef. I can't remember the chronology, was that before or after she heard the first really clear ''Get Gemma Out'' and booing?

I am fairly sure the walkouts were after the crowd reaction.

Gemma has definitely changed since hearing the crowd reactions and appears to have softened going into the final week. It does seem to mirror the Helen Wood scenario where Helen was vile up until the last week or so where she started to be nice to everyone and then went on to win.

Yeah, I thought about this too. Did someone tell them how they were coming across when they broke out? They did a complete 180 on Steph and apoligised when they came back, and they were gone a long time. Or maybe when Daniella saw Steph crying on the bed she realised she wasn't going to come off in a good light.

I'd love it if the crows were allowed to say absolutely nothing or to do just a moderate 'golfer's clap' for each nominated HM. Very neutral and not giving anyone a clue. Then when they feed them info in tasks have it contradictory...something good shortly followed by something bad. Make them wonder a bit. Especially for the celebrity version...

The crowd are morons, and daft if they stand in the freezing cold and rain to boo people.. so I wouidnt bother about any of them...

I thought the crowd were told not to boo her on Tuesday or they would be kicked out.

They need to sack off that fame seeking geezer who for some reason always gets near the stage and manages to get a "Get so & so out.." last minute shout... He really grinds my gears....

Maybe so but they certainly booed her and chanted at the previous eviction when she was up.

Agree with this, instead of messing about and manipulating the voting choices, why not do the above to manipulate the housemates reality - isn't that what the show is meant to be about?

I'm sure they speak highly of you too

Move the whole show and spinoffs from London to avoid the same hangers on and Essex wannabees that populate the crowd and BoTS.

Been saying for years, they should do the links to the house from the studio with no crowd. They have been getting way too much outside influence for years. By next year, they'll be allowed an hour a day to surf the net and check their Twitter, Facebook and Digital Spy accounts

They do... usually it's a mix of "woop woop" followed by "off.. off..off"

Not a wise move

Sparkling riposte David.

you're one of the crowd regulars... aren't you?

I live a fair bit south of Elstree, so I could never be arsed to travel up to join the mob!!

What can they do? They've created a monster and they're now beholden to it.

IIRC there was one series when they did the announcement from inside the studio as someone suggested they should do above