★★★★★ 0/5

The Big Brother post-mortem

Big Brother never realised its full potential as a reinvented Reality series until its bittersweet finale.

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I admit to having a “love / hate” relationship with Big Brother this year.

There were aspects I thought were well done, others that were under-par and more that were simply not good enough. For a juggernaut the size of BB perhaps that’s not surprising, but I would hope if the show wins a renewal that there is room for improvement.

On the positive side of the ledger, the fact that the show made it to season’s end without a major controversy is an achievement in itself. BB is a show that can veer out of control very easily and we’ve seen in other years where media, politicians and industry regulator have slammed the show. Nine kept the show on track in this regard.

Sonia Kruger proved to be a worthy successor to Gretel Killeen, a tall order in itself. There’s a fair bit of traffic to steer on eviction nights before a frenzied throng and Kruger handled this with ease, peppering it with her humour and live performance skills, usually looking like a million dollars at the same time. Next year I would like to see her challenge the housemates a little more in eviction show interviews.

The finale was wonderfully produced, looking at the moments across the series (although I would have brought out the final two together and announced the winner on stage) and it stumped up with some emotional moments involving former housemates and families. I love the News headlines segment and the dance-fest that took us backstage genuinely put a smile on my face.

The best challenge was the Yes / No challenge in which housemates squirmed over dilemmas, sacrificing individual rewards for the greater good. The fake house was another mind-game goodie. I also liked the way housemates embraced a sense of fantasy without questioning the logic.

The delicate handling of Josh leaving the house was without fault.

When it comes to Casting let me firstly say this was a likeable bunch of housemates, which is essential for a stripped prime-time show. But that’s about where my generosity ends. They were too Anglo-Saxon and too young, especially after we were shown ads with various generations and promised a reboot on casting. With the exception of The Voice Nine Reality shows are too white, too often and don’t reflect a modern Australia (The Block is the worst offender here).

The capacity for Big Brother to become a social phenomenon is huge. Shows like Go Back To Where You Came From had the nation talking about racism and immigration, much of it driven by a girl in her 20s and her stubborn views. We saw none of this in BB despite teases that Estelle’s views and Zoe’s views would clash. If they had cast someone who came to Australia as a refugee and has settled into society it could have revolutionised the way we view the topic. We’ve seen big numbers for Anh Do. We fell in love with Amina in MasterChef. The Justice Crew boys were a melting pot of culture in Australia’s Got Talent. Hell, even Merlin in BB had us all talking about the subject in 2005.

The editing of these housemates avoided social issues. Even people in their 20s must have opinions on social media bullying? The Occupy Movement? Where were they? On the finale night Estelle recalled the location where she discussed politics with Bradley. She did?

Nine’s Director of Programming Andrew Backwell told me in June, “We’re casting for interesting debate rather than mindless chat,” and “We want relationships, adults who relate to each other, rather than just people looking to hook up.”

Sorry.  This year BB had two storylines and the main one was “Who can we hook-up next?” Look at the way Josh and Ava were thrown together. Look at the beds. Look at the casting of Sam (nice guy, but it was pretty obvious what was going on). Every second challenge was designed to bring potential partners together or split them apart. Yes romance is a huge storyline driver (Marty & Jess was a great TV romance in 2002, even spawning a spin-off special), but for a show that promised much it was baffling that they could not deliver any other storyline except for this: the bullying of Estelle.

It’s clear living with Estelle would have been a challenge to anybody in a confined space. But it was shameful the way she was isolated by the pack. No wonder the audience responded to her resilience, voting for her to stay week after week. Late in the series, sworn enemies had become friends, while others felt she was playing the victim card. Either way, she proved to be a well cast character with many facets, which is just what you need in a series of this length.

So after weeks of giving the show the most content, should the audience feel cheated that Estelle didn’t win?

Up to and including the finale he was still dissing her. I felt confident the audience would deliver the moral lesson: that you cannot bully someone in a social situation and get away with it. But I was wrong. The democracy that is the viewing public voted Benjamin to win and a wave of objections has ensued online, including on this site.

My other concern with the storylines was the relentless dress-ups / antics that sought to push the “family-friendly” line. Sumo wrestlers, cowboys, gypsy weddings, cops, Halloween, animals. Was this show sponsored by the local costume shop? For anybody who said we didn’t have Friday Night Games, I would suggest we had it every night.

And while we’re on the topic of “Family friendly,” how is bullying family friendly? I’m confused.

BB did use Twitter well, but the official site lacked anything compelling that drew me back very often. Nine also didn’t maximise its multichannel opportunities. There was an audience that would have watched late-night content with Mike Goldman if it had been offered. Nine was so nervous about adult content de-railing the show’s tone, but it didn’t even offer a PG rated late night version, which would have lifted numbers for GO! and on some occasions they would have been enough to tip Nine over the line for a ratings win.

I fully realise that many of my comments are based on the selective editing of Producers. But that’s what Reality TV is.

Despite my concerns, let me assure you….. there are clearly positives in having a gay man win the contest, which is a first for BB.

Ironically, I would suggest that in years to come when we look back on the series, Ben’s surprise marriage proposal will actually be its defining moment. While debates rage about gay marriage it took a young man in love to make a live statement before a broad commercial audience.

Just as Merlin had done in 2005, Benjamin manipulated a genre that is always about manipulation itself.

I guess we did get a social statement after all.

36 Responses

  1. On debates, there’s got to be a way to not be forcing it to allow it to come up. It might be good casting.

    Now we all saw Zoe was against boat people. This was pretty much never seen or heard again from when she went int.

    It would have been good for someone informed to have gotten her to voice her opinions on boat people. Then her opinions on Layla moving to Australia and where they reconcile.

    The problem is, people are too concerned at times of being liked in the house and then if not being liked in the house. To be liked on the outside. So it just avoids this. Early on in the season people like Estelle and Brad liked talking about politics. Housemates like Josh actively shut them down. Even saying he hates when people talk about it.

    The environment and housemates simply weren’t conducive to it.

  2. @ David. Response to a previous post. I realised Ben had voted for Estelle. What I meant was the housemates voted for estelle and only voted for Ben towards the end. Cheers

  5. I feel it’s been beneath my dignity to watch this ‘show’ for a few years now, but I have to say that @Carta is on the right track re casting.
    A friend was on the production staff of BB a few years ago and she told me they would have loved to cast housemates of all persuasions & ethnicities because it makes for better viewing (read: conflict and/or mating). Apparently the same sad attention-seekers re-apply each year and so the pool of people shallow enough – and with enough free time – to be on BB is evidently, um, shallow. At least that was the story 6 years ago.

  7. Loved BB this year and thought it was mostly well produced.
    Casting I agree could be a little older and intelligent. Showing housemates kissing I found very off putting and I found it interesting that the public voted them out or broke up the couples first chance they got (note for future contestants playing the game next series).
    Regarding putting different ethnicities in the house together just to start racial debate is in itself a step backwards in stopping racism. That idea just continues and promotes hatred. It’s really all about integration and treating people from other non anglo saxon cultures as “normal” without making them feel different from anyone else living here. I’m all for having people of diffterent backgrounds in the house but it should never be made a storyline out of.

  8. @monk No-one said anything about affirmative action, BB (and all other 9 reality shows) did not represent the make up of Australia, go and sit on the corner at your local mall/main street and you will see exactly what we mean.

    Look at Masterchef for example, all ages and ethnicities (sp?) were given a chance and it showed, 9 can’t even bother to pretend they were trying with the promos let alone the show.

  9. One of the producers was asked about the casting in TV Week (mid-season). He said that they would have liked a broader range of ages in the house, but quite simply, older people didn’t apply to go in. He suspected that because of the “seedy” reputation of earlier seasons, older people were put off and weren’t interested in being involved. He also said that they’d like to have housewives and teachers etc. etc. in there, but people like that either have kids to look after or jobs that don’t allow you to take up to three months off. How many people here have a job that would allow them to take anything from three weeks to three months off? I know I certainly couldn’t. In a nutshell, he said that they did the best with what they were given.

  10. Monk, most other reality TV shows (Masterchef, The Amazing Race, Come Dine With Me Australia etc) include different nationalities in their mix. It beggars belief that Big Brother and The Block can only find interesting white contestants amongst the thousands that audition for both shows every year.

  11. Don’t really understand the “too white” comments.
    When there were 3 non whites in the house. And should they over look a white person just because of his/her colour? Little racist don’t you think?
    Sort of like ” Sorry. We think you’re great. But we’re going with this black guy. He isn’t interesting as you but he will make up the numbers.”
    Affirmative action does not work. It makes for inferior products.

  12. I’m glad they did the announce of the winner in house and then left them there for a bit. That’s how the started it originally, and continued before they took them on stage for whatever reason, then flipped back to house, etc.

    The winner is of course the last housemate remaining, the last to be evicted. So it should be announced in house and they have to be stuck there for a little while by themselves. It’s great. Still remember Ben in series 1, and then later Reggie fretting all by herself in there. Bringing it on stage to announce it, I really don’t like. It isn’t about the stage (X Factor, Idol, etc), it’s all about the house.

    It really did suck with no uplate on regularly this year especially since we didn’t get a live feed 24/7 on the website. It’s a more up to date and tech world than when Bb first started and there was live feeds back then but not now? Anyway if they bring it back next year, and there’s no live feed again they need to bring back Uplate on regularly. They have plenty more places they can put it now as they have extra channels.

  13. It’s odd… I watched every other season of BB that was aired on 10, even the final season which was woeful, but I was still hooked. Those few years with it off air killed it for me, I couldn’t have been less interested in watching this season, and that surprised me. I think the Channel 9 sheen on everything put me and hundreds of thousands of others off… everything looked half done, thrown together, the casting was your typical Channel 9 reality show casting, and everything just seemed, well, cheap.

    Hope for those who enjoyed it get to see it back next year, and perhaps 9 will learn from their mistakes and change things up.

  15. @ David “the fact that the show made it to season’s end without a major controversy is an achievement in itself.”

    Except for the puffer fish Surly having to be replaced 5 times, because it died or got sick.

  17. I agree with some of the comments you have..

    – I think the way that Ben was left in the house at the end, rather than pulling the last 2 out, works. Seeing how he coped with being the last one in really works well.

    – I enjoyed the final, as I call it, ghosts of the house, at the end. It was done in the past, and it works really well.

    – the dance through the backstage worked so well. I’d love to see more behind the scenes stuff. There was a bit on the website, but not really heaps. How they put together things, like how did big baby work…

    – the website had ‘stuff’ but not heaps. I’d refer to it for various videos, but that was really it.

    – I didn’t vote.. Not sure if I an one to spend money on it.

    – it really needs a late night ep, or live feed. Allows us to understand the housemates

    – Leon and the team did great with the humour of big brother this year. At least once an ep, we’d laugh. Surley was great too. Need to bring something like that back next year..

    Otherwise, I Do think it was the best ever..

    Sonya did a great job.

  18. I couldn’t agree more with you David although your were far more patient with proceedings than I was. Isn’t it the total irony that the show only became socially relevant in its dying minutes with the gay marriage proposal? For more on the “too young, too white” debate, I speak to Age Discrimination Officer Susan Ryan about this very show this Monday on The Playlist on Showcase at 6.20pm, cheers.

  19. Great article David, as always. I thought Channel Nine wasted a good opportunity with this series.

    *Everything that’s been said about casting on this blog is true. We needed more diverse characters. A muslim housemate would have been fascinating to watch and groundbreaking in terms of getting Australians to understand they’re human just like everyone else. A couple more older housemates would have been good. Everyone in this series seemed pretty normal and that was boring for me to watch. I wanted to get to know them all a bit better and the way the show was produced made this impossible.

    * How anyone could make an informed voting decision is beyond me. I believe in the uncut format because we need to see all sides to the housemates, they are human and none of us are PG rated 24/7. Who cares about the public pressure, in the end nobody is ever going to censor it because that violates the whole freedom of the press thing. The confidential show was ridiculous and a waste of time. The Daily Shows looked way too edited. The audience was treated like children, it felt like the show was being targeted at 12 year olds. At times I sat watching and thought I can’t believe they’ve devoted a whole segment to a talking fish and why I am sitting here watching it.

    * They didn’t make use of multichannels. We should have seen way more of the house. Big Brother played way too big of a role in speaking to them, it was so obvious to me that housemates were being probed by him in the diary room and not going in there to just vent. The show’s strength on Ten was that it all looked random (whether or not it actually was). On Nine it was obvious huge chunks of the daily show events were contrived and I’m not sure we’re supposed to know or see this.

    * The eviction shows didn’t look big. The sets looked small and Sonya talked too much. It looked like a vehicle for her to show off when in reality the show was never about the host. If she wanted to speak or be seen more she should have worked harder at interviewing the housemates. I also missed seeing housemates reunite with loved ones and I missed seeing them for a more in depth interview on nomination night.

    * I understand scheduling issues with sports broadcasts prevented them doing a Friday Night Live, but why not a Saturday Night Live or something.

    * The Daily Shows too were hard to watch because they’d start them in the night time and then you’d see the housemates waking up halfway through the episode. On Ten the episodes were clearly structured so the day being examined would start at the start of the broadcast and the night would come at the end. Basic stuff really.

    I could go on and on and obviously haven’t put my arguments as succinctly as David but I hope my points get across and would be interested to know what others think.

    And I must add, obviously despite all this bitching I still watched it and enjoyed it. It just could have been more enjoyable and I drifted off midway through the series and no longer found it appointment viewing. It was a chore to watch at times.

  20. I hope someone is paying you a lot of money to watch this rubbish so avidly to know so much about it. If not, I would suggest you get out to the theatre, run round the block, watch more episodes of “Mad men” and “Breaking Bad” on cable or DVD-anything. I dont think watching such blindingly bilious brain dead rubbish is necessary to write what is an otherwise excellent website.

  21. The young white cast delivered the white 16-39 demographics that advertisers want. Those demographic numbers are why the show was a success and will be back next year.

    Homosexuality is not an issue with the target audience. They wear support of Gay Rights a badge that defines their identity.

    1. Agree it’s not an issue with the target audience, which is why I never raised it. But there are other multicultural casts that have enjoyed much bigger audiences than BB did. Hell even Anh Do had bigger numbers for his first ep than the BB finale.

  22. It’s obvious the casting of Nine’s reality shows is done through the eyes of its white anglo middle aged management, who live in the lower north shore where there is not as much ethnic diversity.

  23. I still don’t think that BBs avoidance of controversy is a positive, something really controversial, that got people talking could have been the difference that turned the show into a huge hit. The underlying problem this year was that the show was irrelevant.

    I’m terrible I know, but I think they should have shown more of Josh’s exit, and not turned off the cameras. The whole concept of people living under a microscope is that viewers are part of their drama, if they are going to switch off the cameras as soon as there is real drama it spoils the concept for me. It is Big brother, viewers don’t expect sensitivity of the housemates privacy, not should the housemates expect any privacy. Surely there was a way of showing housecam footage in a respectful enough way.

  24. Interesting summary to read having invested countless hours myself in watching BB 2012. The things I thought were positive were:
    1 Bradley – his bravery with his speech impediment was inspiring and at times painful to watch and hear, but very hope-filled.
    2 Benjamin – an intelligent, funny, gay man in the house, notorious not for being gay, but for his manipulations and gossip. His winning kiss and proposal were moving (as were previous gay housemate David on his eviction stage)
    3 Handling of grief with Josh
    4 Tasks and twists were interesting and novel.
    5 Super-power was well used.

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