Big Brother

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Keith1701, Jun 3, 2013.

  1. Keith1701

    Keith1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I am really looking foward to seeing this season of Big Brother. Last season was great hope this season is just as good. It starts on June 29, 2013.
     
  2. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm looking forward to it as well! I was going to start a thread but I did so in the past and it wasn't very successful, so I'm glad you did. One slight correction, the season actually starts on June 26th.

    The rumor is that this cast will be all new, no returning players, which hasn't happened in a while so it should be fun.

    Other news is that CBS will now be controlling the live feeds instead of Superpass, and Big Brother After Dark will no longer be airing on Showtime. It will now be on TVGN, which is the TV Guide channel, and will be two hours instead of three. For us west coast folks, it will be delayed by three hours (I used to be able to watch the east coast feed of Showtime 2 from 9 pm to midnight). Unfortunately I don't get that channel on AT&T Uverse.
     
  3. Danny99

    Danny99 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'd be glad if we didn't see any re-hashed houseguests. If you're going to do that, make them all re-hashed.

    It'll be interesting to see if they make After Dark available here in Canada as I'll be recovering from surgery at that point and will have lots of time to fritter away.
     
  4. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    I sometimes watch Big Brother but a majority of the time they have a completely unlikable cast.

    So my attitude toward Big Brother is, watch the first few episodes, and if they're all angry entitled douches like the average season, stop watching.

    To me, the good seasons are season 2, season 3, All-star, and Dan's two seasons. Heck, last season I was shocked that the show was actually good. Season before last I turned off permanently the moment Dick walked in the door.

    Most seasons are just a lot of shallow bitter 25 year old blondes crying and calling each other Satan. And then the year after the same shallow bitter 25 year old blondes dirty Amazing Race with their obnoxiously douchey presence.
     
  5. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Another rumor is that half the cast will be young (under 25 I think) and the other half will be "old" (over 35), with the oldest being around 70. This is a random Twitter rumor, so its reliability is highly dubious, but that would make for an interesting season.
     
  6. Keith1701

    Keith1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Still waiting on the big day for the first episode this season of Big Brother.:)
     
  7. Danny99

    Danny99 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The problem with this and one that Big Brother has had consistently is that they find the most boneheaded, self absorbed "young" people they can find that you can't help but root against.
     
  8. stoneroses

    stoneroses Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I find it too boring now. Time for the next Orwellian show perhaps 'everyone is equal...' Or 'down and out in Paris and London' or how about a deep see diving game show 'coming up for Air'.
     
  9. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    CBS just came out with the price for the new feeds, it will be about $24 if you buy before the season starts and $27 thereafter. Not bad, considering that it will still include all of the important features such as flashbacks (now called the archive), online chat rooms, mobile viewing, and all that fun stuff.

    The bad news is that anyone outside the US cannot sign up for the feeds. This is unfortunate since there are a lot of Canadian BB fans! People are already starting to find ways around that though, through VPNs and such.

    I've also heard another dubious rumor that the twist this year might resemble that of season 6, where secret pairs entered the house, and if a pair made it to the end without anyone finding out they already knew each other they would get a bigger cash prize.

    Who knows what's real and what's not at this point. Either way I think it will be a good season, I feel optimistic!
     
  10. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    I haven't signed up for the feeds since season 2.

    I will admit there was some cool stuff in the feeds that year. I recall Will suggesting that himself, Mike and Bunky all have sex with Nicole at the same time (And I specifically remember him uttering the phrase 'You have three orifices of love'), and I recall them spending hours trying to figure out the rules for an overly elaborate drinking game.

    But I have better things to do with my time. So I'm fine just watching the show, if it happens to be decent that year. And if I'm not home when it airs I'm fine just missing it. Fortunately it tends to only need one manipulating bastard to be a good season. All the seasons I consider good have either had Dan, Will or S3 Danielle.
     
  11. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Big Brother still exists?
     
  12. Danny99

    Danny99 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The houseguests are up and once again, we have our token old person among the twenty something swimsuit models. So much for the rumor of some older blood in this season.

    Plus we have this MVP vote thing that sounds like it could be the copy of America's Player or something.

    http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_brother/mvp-vote/

    Just by strategy on that page, I'm picking David as my early favorite. His strategy is what I'd go with.
     
  13. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    I hate it when they let home voters affect the outcome of the game. The c'oup de tat, ugh. Games are more fun to watch when they are just allowed to play out without obvious nudging.

    Sure all these shows nudge all the time. I'm 90% sure they don't decide which legs on Amazing Race are non elimination legs until they see who comes in last. But at least edit it out properly to preserve the illusion!
     
  14. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    There are also videos of the new houseguests on the CBS website as well as some other Big Brother fan sites. After watching the interviews, my favorites are Helen, McCrae, and Andy. My absolute least favorite is Jeremy, who is extremely cocky and full of himself.

    Also, Rachel (yes, THAT Rachel) has a sister competing this year in the house, Elissa. She seems like a less annoying version of Rachel.

    In addition to the MVP thing, it has also been announced that there will be three people nominated, at least for the first few weeks of the game. That should be interesting to see play out...

    The MVP thing sounds great in theory, I would love to reward the person who has the best strategy each week, but in practice I think we know it will turn out to be a popularity contest. Also, those who watch the feeds know that the CBS episodes are highly edited to favor certain players. Many times in past seasons, there were entire strategies and alliances never shown at all, instead those people were made out to look like fools while others who had no clue what they were doing were edited as controlling the whole game. Basically, if CBS wants the vote to go a particular way, they have a lot of control over that.

    But, I don't want to be negative before the season even begins. I'm glad that we have a whole new cast of people and I can't wait to see how it plays out!
     
  15. Solariabsg25

    Solariabsg25 Commodore Commodore

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    What, there is an American Big Brother? I didn't even know this!

    I haven't followed in the UK for years, it was interesting for the first couple, but then they started with stunt-casting, trying to get the most oddballs that would immediately cause conflict (then of course the makers wrung their hands when the conflict they wanted showed sexism/racism/homophobia).

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Danny99

    Danny99 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ^^ Pretty much describes the American version as well.
     
  17. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    The American version is different from the other versions. (As far as I know) most versions of Big Brother are like US Big Brother season 1 where the viewers totally determine who leaves.

    US Big Brother is like a badly cast, wussy version of Survivor.

    Heh, Spot, can you give some specific examples of manipulative editing? I've read the 'controversy' section of the Wikipedia page and the only one listed there is when they apparently tried to manipulate Ian in the diary room last season.
     
  18. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, in I think almost all international versions of BB (except for the new BB Canada) the public votes for who is evicted. That clearly didn't work in the first season of BBUS, so I'm glad they changed the rules.

    And I would say that because of this difference the BBUS version is less trashy, because the focus is more on strategy and alliances rather than just a straight up popularity contest. I guess it depends on why you watch, but I watch for the psychological aspects of it, which you can't find in any other show on TV (well there's Survivor, but we don't get to see them scheming 24/7). And hey, at least they haven't had any celebrity versions!


    Well my memory sucks, so I'm probably forgetting most of the great examples, but for instance Brendon was a completely different person on feeds than on the episodes. If the regular viewing audience had watched feeds there is no way they would have voted him back in that second season. Biggest douchebag ever and a little abusive towards Rachel. Another example is Shelly. For the first two months of the show the episodes didn't show any of her scheming and strategizing, they just stuck her in the mom role, but those watching the feeds know that she was very manipulative and strategic from the beginning.

    So it's things like that...there are viewers who go further and say that the diary room producers actually put words in the houseguests' mouths, but I doubt it's that blatant, because they don't need to be. They can simply pick and choose your footage so that you appear to be a certain way, when really there is a whole different side to you that might turn off the voting public if they knew about it.
     
  19. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    Okay, so it's more about telling the narrative they want, not about manipulating the results of the votes most of the time? That's not as bad.

    Although I know Jeff was openly homophobic in the feeds. Something along the lines of 'Dumbledore shouldn't be headmaster of a school because he's gay'. No way he would have gotten on Amazing Race if that was broadcast. Jeff & Jordan were probably the most hatable Amazing Race team of all time.

    I'm only willing to watch shows like this because I really like games, so I make the effort to filter out the annoying stuff and just watch for the strategic aspect. Just, all the people who call their opponents Satan for trying to win are insufferable and when there are too many of them they make the show unwatchable.
     
  20. Spot's Meow

    Spot's Meow Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That's my opinion, that it's more a manipulation of the audience's emotions rather than an actual manipulation of the votes, but like I said there are also those who do think that nothing at all is real and the producers have a hand in everything. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.