I'm a new member as far as posting here goes but I've been following the BB forum since the start & have been interested to note that people are very quick to portion the blame on Ch4/Endemol for the worst BB series so far. We must except part responsibility for that failure .

I'm not going to defend the programme makers because they could have done much better & they've let us all down.

The H/m's we have left in now are the ones we voted to keep in, that was our decision, we have ploughed millions into the pockets of the BB coffers & instead of voting for nice but 'Boring' ones that everyone complains having now we should have kept in the 'Pain in the backsides' & controversial ones then we would have had a final couple of weeks at least to rival any of the other 3 BB's.

Over the weeks we've had the chance to change the course of the show to some extent & I don't think we took full advantage. My thought is, if Anouska, Jon, Lisa,Fed & maybe Ray were the last five in the house now the show, I'm sure, would be a lot more watchable. The motto is 'WHO GOES, YOU DECIDE', who's left is not the fault of the H/m's nominations on a Monday, that's only half the job, the public always has the final say.

Next year HAS to be different or the whole concept may be dead, before we make that all important phone call, text, or Interactive vote we must ask ourselves what we want from the show.

Ch4/Endemol must get this show back on track to the show we all loved watching, the 'Back To Basics' approach clearly didn't work, stop thinking about their pockets and think about the viewing public.

I read an article not so long ago in a magazine about BB saying that there is a basic format of a triangle with equal sides for a successful series such as BB, between the programme makers, the participants and the public. As soon as one side takes control and the triangle gets out of shape that's when problems start to occur & I think that's what's happened.

Hi there & welcome to DS !

Yes, the viewers often did make the wrong choices & often the editing of BB 'directed' the viewers into making the wrong choices.

But ultimately C4 persuaded Endemol to play very safe with its choice of HMs this year. The bores formed the large majority of HMs in the BB4 House and they kept on nominating the more interesting characters for eviction. In addition as interesting HMs got voted out, the remaining characters had no one other than the bores to interact with, which made them duller than they would have otherwise been.

The thing is, this is enevitable...

We vote out the people we hate (the interesting ones) and leave the boring/nice/conventional people in.

I think we will see many ideas in this years US BB in next years UK BB.

I feel that during the first weeks of BB, Channel 4 alienated many viewers by using the text scrolling messages and voting polls.

Personally, I cannot watch E4 as I really do find watching the screen irratating with these factets to them and turn instead to 'listen' into E4 Interactive. This has reduced my viewing pleasure in BB massively and obviously, reducedd my 'addiction' to BB.

I have not vote since Jon left the house, nor do I intend to. It is not only the viewers that are to blame for ousting the 'noisy' HMs, but also the choice of HM selected by Channel 4/Endemol this year.

Fortunately, by this time next week - it will be over.

there are different formats
in use around the world.
at the end of tonights
live task on channel4,
a trailer was shown
for the american bb4.
it promises much....
if it delivers, could we
consider a uk version.

Totally agree......From what I've seen of the trailers BBUSA will be worth watching, I wouldn't be at all suprised to see it pull in more E4 viewers than BBUK.

The OP (welcome) has a definite point. I don't think that this year's house has been, innately, much worse than last year's. It's how the public have voted - suppose BB3 had ended with a final four of Sophie, Lee, PJ and Tim, with monosyllabic Spencer voted back in (like Jon) but by his teenie vote - makes one shudder to think! Equally, there could have been an entertaining last four this year, had things been different (ans especially without the early eviction and double eviction - disasters to go down in history).

The "back to basics" they said is actually not what they did at all.

The first mistake (choosing of HMs aside that is) was to have the HMs nominate within two hours of being in there. I much prefered the original format of allowing us 2 weeks to get to know the HMs before evicting one of them.

Cameron mentioned BB had told them this year was about harmony, hence why they chose some boring HMs and hence why the HMs themselves have been nomming those they think are less harmonious.

The splitting of the group during the live Saturday task hasn't worked. The tasks themself have had not an ounce of excitement but have been boring. The themed secret room was good the first Saturday but the secret was gone that night and thus the RR became worn out. I much preferred the old way of giving the entire household a themed party in the main body of the house and not in some little room which made me feel claustrophobic. The weekly tasks haven't been thrilling or amusing either.

I'd like to see the HMs having decent discussions. BB should encourage them to do this like they did in BB1 and 2.

Oh heck, lets just sack the production team and run it ourselves eh? LOL

Skye

I cannot imagine any combination of 4 HMs that would of resulted in an entertaining last 4.

Jon, Fed and Tania I liked ... but this selection of particular HMs were dire. Many of them are lacking in character, a willingness to talk in front of the camera and basically be themselves. No, I think it DOES basically come down to C4's selection process of these HMs.

ps Pasta - what does your abbreviation OP mean??

In forumspeak, OP means original poster (aka thread starter).

Whatever selection process was used to determine these H/M's one thing you cannot control & that is if someone is desperate to get on BB (Some 50,000 or so I believe this year, correct me if I'm wrong) then they will put absolutely anything on their application form to give them the best possible chance of catching the right persons eye. We only find out their true personalities once they've settled in, when it's too late to change them. For this reason you cannot blame the BB producers for their wrong selection surely.

Some people will elaborate their CV's when appyling for a new job to give themselves a better chance over the opposition, I've never done that myself of course you understand, that's all he H/M's have done to get on BB.

The point I made in my original post was that we could have had better entertainment if we had kept in certain H/M's other than the ones we have, not great entertainment but better than we have and that choice was down to us.

Thanks for the OP definition - I've only been on this innernet thing at least 12 years, and I must of missed that one

Martyn, Unfortunately I cannot agree that it was down to the viewers booting out certain HMs and therefore the choice of who we are left with at the end is down to us.

I fully put the blame of selecting these HMs down to Channel 4 / Endemol - there were rumours (unsubstantiated of course) that these HMs were selected specifically by C4 because they would theoretically get on and there would be harmony in the house.

Viewers with Channel 4 only, or viewers who watch extremely limited E4 (my sisters - plural!!) think that Cameron is lovely. They have fallen for the image of country yokel, lovely innocent island lad, hook, line and sinker and have seen NOTHING that would make them think he was other than this.

That kind of editing comes down to what is shown on BBLB and the Channel 4 nightly programmes.

We have not discovered anything about these housemates, and if there is a discussion, what happens? Birdsong. Two specific examples come to mind, both include Cameron .... so whose fault is it??

I blame of this extremely poor BB on Channel 4 !

I think one problem is that the housemates have watched the previous series and as there hasn't been much of a change they are all playing the game too seriously instead of relaxing like in BB1.

I think a complete shake up of the house, eviction process (putting them in a van seemed quite a novel idea from the Aussies), voting system would shock the players into realising they can't play the game based on watching previous series.

Endemol have been a factor though in all this, they chose the housemates this year. I've seen bits of the Aussie and Africa one and they seem more friendly and watchable. With BB UK this year they all seem to be playing the game so seriously that to be frank, I don't want any of them to win the 70K.

Bit of both I think, as usual. I do feel for Endemol a little because they are, or believe they are, struggling against a broad public reluctance to endorse unusual, controversial, challenging or plain quirky HMs.

Equally, however, they need not have selected dull HMs nor make them even duller by withholding their quirks and kinks from the public through editing. Actually, I'm coming to think that it doesn't matter if you choose pretty ordinary, anodyne contestants - surely the interesting thing is watching normal members of the public break down and react under BB conditions, so if they would only SHOW THAT HAPPENING we might have a different show. After all I don't want to see four pantomime dames or serial killers in the final week. Ordinary dull people are fine by me, but only if they are shown in all their glory - ie the negative emotions and acts as well as the positive. I think Endemol have forgotten that that is what a lot of people see as the purpose of the BB experiment.

If we voted to STAY all the way through you might get more interesting characters in at the end. Would be harder to target people who grab attention - eg Fed, Anouschka (sp?) - and might get rid of the boring ones earlier because folks wouldn't feel as passionately about keeping them in...

Exactly this would of resulted in a different set of HM's at the end. However Endemol believes you are more likely to vote a person you dislike out, than vote positively. I think though it would of helped if they had like just put everyone up for eviction a few weeks into it, so they can't think playing the bland character will keep them immune from being put up for eviction.

I think a lot of the people in there have not been very natural and shown their true sides of themselves in the house. (just look at some of the awful nominating excuses!!) They don't show their true emotions and I think this is because the group have been actively playing the game instead of going into the house for the experience. (and those who say they are not playing the game, saying you are not playing the game is actually part of playing the game!)

I too have serious problems with the thought that one of them will win the money. In the past, even if my favourite didn't win I wasn't too bothered by the person who did win (as long as it wasn't Johnny last year).

And I agree totally that a huge part of the blame is on the GBP who got carried away with the idea of 'punishing' anyone who dared to show an opinion or be loud etc. by kicking them out.

However, in the past other loud characters have gone (Alison, Narinder, Carolyn etc.) and it gave the 'not so in your face' ones chance to develop and speak out. Thats where it has failed this year - the more we see of the others the less we see. They are either too scared in case they get booed and loathed by us or they are so intent on winning the game and think that the fact they are still there proves we like them and that is how we want them to behave.

If Channel 4 set up a vote to give the money to charity instead of one of that lot I'd do something I haven't done this series - I'd spend 25p and vote.

There have been a number of problems with BB4. As some of you have said, the house has been more harmonious this year, this is probably due to the producers' fear of putting in contentious characters not wanting a repeat BB3. BB3 was very successful but it was a completely unharmonious house, they obviously didn't want to do this two times in a row so have tried to emulate BB2. They've been too cautious with their selection of housemates though and characters like Nush and Ray who had great potential haven't been allowed to come through because of the bores around them.

Also, as some of you have said, the housemates are all being far too careful, especially about being bitchy, as they have analysed how to win the show from past series but this makes for boring viewing.

There are things they have got right. There was a lot of criticism about the lack of good tasks and things to do at the start of BB3, I think they have thought about this more carefully this year and there have been some good tasks, it's just that the housemates who weren't too enthusiastic. The reward room was a good idea too but didn't cause great friction, again because of the lacklustre housemates.

I believe that POSITIVE voting is the only way forward. Vote for the nominee you want to stay as opposed to the one you want to go.

Imagine what would have happened in the Fed/Jon/Cameron stand off if that had been the case... I reckon that Fed would have been, err... an unusual addition to the BBSA house, Jon would have continued to be his original unspoilt self (oblivious to his quirky popularity cult) and Cameron would have been at home, co-writing small minded bitter editorials ghost written by his brother.

Positive voting would also improve crowd response at evictions (less booing) and induce more genteel level of discussion on both the official board and this one.

Ah, t'would be lovely...

...if only we could do something about the forked up editing...

If he choice of H/m's are not down to us then why do we bother having a public vote to evict on a Friday, surely that's the whole point of us choosing so we do have a say on who's left in. We might as well let them evict themselves if that's not the case.

I see where you're coming from on the Ch4 editing though, obviously most people can only get Ch4 so base their opinions of H/M's purely on what they see for half an hour each night and clearly this is where the editing has the most influence. I think they have a certain obligation to the public to produce a more accurate picture for the viewers so they can make up their own minds.

The format, i.e. programmes NOT every night and the tasks I will agree with, what I don't want is 11 Barbie/Ken clones and an ex special branch officer, we do have an envy 'gene' in this country and any pretty/handsome HM would be gone in a flash.