Youāve probably read this title and thoughtĀ āChrist, he really likes Big Brother too muchā and youād be correct. I definitely do. Thereās no denying that. But I would add that you probably think Big Brother is just a trashy, meaningless reality show and Iām afraid to tell you that youāre wrong about that. You have probably come to that conclusion as a result of extreme reality saturation. Reality as a genre is now almost exclusively easy to watch trash that washes over you and you forget about a few days later. Big Brother is entirely responsible for all of it existing but I donāt believe it should be judged the same way as its spawn.
BB is the original and it should be treated with respect (yes Channel 5, Iām talking to you).Ā At one time in the UK, Big Brother was the biggest show on television. It was on the front pages of national newspapers and magazines. Housemates became household names. It was watched by four times the amount of people that watched the Love Island final this July. It changed the way TV was made. Before Big Brother, we didnāt have shows where the public called up and voted people off. It wasnāt a thing. Big Brother is the original reality show. The greatest of all time. A show with so many iconic scenes and characters, no other reality can even come close. Try arguing a case against a show that gave you Nasty Nickās confrontation, Helen and Paulās romance, Jade Goodyās verruca meltdown, Fight Night, Michelle and Chicken Stu under the table, Kinga and her bottle, Nikki Grahameās diary room rants. If we go over to CBB, it gave you George Galloway being a cat,Ā āYeah, Jackieā, Tiffany Pollard believing David Gest had died in the house. No other show could produce moments like this.Ā
So why is it being cancelled at the end of this series? Well, nobody is watching it anymore. Has the show changed? Yes, a bit. But not really. The basic premise has always been there for 19 series. Whatās changed a lot more is society. We are a very different country to what we were in the year 2000. People have much shorter attention spans and have come to expect shows to be heavily produced and edited. Big Brother is still essentially the same show it always was but it has changed and Iām going to tell you how while also hopefully reminding you why the show is so incredibly important and why itās an absolute travesty that itās been thrown on the scrap heap without anyone caring.
Series 1 began on the 18th of July 2000. Ten people went into a house, and the first few weeks bubbled away without much fuss, viewers were steadily increasing as people became interested in loud and confrontational characters like Caroline and Nicola and a burgeoning romance between Andy and Mel. We could spy on people living their lives. After years of having to covertly peak through the net curtains or put a glass to the wall to spy on the neighbours, we could do it openly in our homes and then get rid of anyone that was annoying us by calling up and voting them out.
The show didnāt take long to become a national talking point. After 35 days, Nick Bateman was ejected from the house for cheating. For weeks leading up, he had been secretly writing names on pieces of paper and showing them to other housemates in an attempt to sway their nominations. The public had also watched him make up stories about things like his wife dying in a car accident and heād become the most hated man in Britain. On his final day, the other housemates had confronted him, led by Craig who eventually won the show. Nick was on the front pages, he made the show a massive hit, everyone was talking about it.Ā
The second series was eagerly anticipated and was full of much of the same arguments and controversy. The show was streamed 24 hours a day on E4 and a sister show began called Big Brotherās Little Brother which would lead to the āsister showā becoming a genre of its own and being a staple of pretty much every reality and talent show on TV. Brian Dowling won the second series after being adorable and hilarious for 64 days. His win told me, a gay 13 year old boy, that young, gay men could be accepted for who they are by millions and that was invaluable to me. Big Brother literally changed my life, so forgive me if I get defensive about it. Itās more than a TV show to me. Over 19 years, it has taught me so much about human interaction, about accepting people for who they are and about a whole host of controversial issues. Watching a house full of different adults every year from the age of 12... I canāt even imagine how many things the show taught me. Itās almost certainly shaped a huge part of me and my personality.
Week one of the third series brought the first ever nominations twist as the public were asked to nominate two housemates and then the housemates would decided which one to evict. Of the two that were up, the housemates chose to evict Lynne who had actually received the second highest number of the votes. Who had the highest number of votes to leave after one week? Jade Goody. Sort of proves that letting the public vote for anything might have been a huge mistake all along. Jade Goody would later become the biggest star the show has ever produced. Jadeās story is one of the most fascinating stories in British pop culture history and Iām astounded it hasnāt been made into a film. She made the series unmissable and I believe sheās one of the all time greats. BB3 also gave us Allison Hammond who now presents on This Morning along with a load of other stuff and Adele Roberts who hosts the Radio 1 early morning breakfast show. This series was the most crazy yet, with more twists and turns than before and a more volatile mix of housemates.Ā
Following the insanity of BB3, the show tried to get back to basics with its cast and the people chosen were a bit less manic. This was the first huge misstep for BB. Itās a risky format, thereās always a chance that your housemates just arenāt going to work. Always a chance theyāll all pretty much just get on and have a nice life in the house. This is another reason why I love Big Brother. Thereās always a risk that it could be a shit series. Sure, producers can intervene and try to spice the show up but, what Iāve learned over the years is, that if itās a shit series then it just canāt be saved. If those housemates arenāt right then nothing you throw at them is going to fix the problem. BB4 was one of those years, it was perfectly pleasant but entirely uneventful.
So Big Brother 5 had to win everyone back. A lot of people had given up on BB4 but the show was still young enough to stir up interest when it came around again the following year. Theyād learnt from last year and were telling us that Big Brother wasĀ āgoing evilā. The house was pumped full of loud, opinionated and diverse people. Big Brother was harsher and meaner than ever before. The show was exciting again. The huge argument that is now known asĀ āFight Nightā was one of the showās landmark moments. Security was sent in to diffuse the situation. The police were called by concerned viewers at home. Housemates were screaming and shouting in each otherās faces. Tension that had been bubbling under the surface for weeks had erupted and it was absolutely amazing to watch. I was watching the live feed on E4 that night and despite mostly only getting to see shots of the garden and hearing the familiar sound of birdsong, the little snippets I was able to see were genuinely thrilling.
Big Brother 5 was won by Nadia Almada, the first trans housemate ever. Following Brianās win a few years earlier, this cemented Big Brotherās important place in the LGBT world. No other show has shown quite as many varied types of queer people in this country. And it doesnāt just show them, it lets an audience get to know them. Nadia didnāt win because she was trans. She won because she had been an incredible housemate. Seeing the leaps and bounds trans rights have made in recent years has been amazing but letās remember how out of the ordinary it was to see a trans person on mainstream TV in 2004. Not a drag queen like Lily Savage or someone wheeled out on Jerry Springer for a cheap laugh. We got to see a real trans person on mainstream national TV and it canāt be understated how healthy that was for our country and culture.
BB was now back on track as BB6 came along and was just as great as BB5 had been, probably better. We had legends like Makosi and Kemal, Craig and Antonyās fascinating friendship and fiery characters like Science, Maxwell, Roberto and Derek to keep the drama going for the whole summer. Kinga and her bottle will probably be the most memorable moment from the series but the whole three months were exceptional.
Big Brother 7 was more of the same. Another amazing mix of housemates including Pete, Nikki, Richard, Lea, Aisleyne and Glyn. But BB7 is where things started to take a turn. This series had 22 housemates overall. That is too many housemates. One thing that hardly ever saves a series is throwing in more housemates and BB7 added 8 people across three different twists. Not only that but a very late twist allowing the public to put their favourite evicted housemate back in was the first time BB messed with one of itās fundamental format points, āWho goes, you decideā. The public had paid to evict Nikki and then she was allowed back in. If that wasnāt bad enough, when she did return she was a lot more knowing, sheād seen how hilarious the public found her tantrums so she was playing up to that and it wasnāt the same. Nikki is one of the greatest housemates of all time but I think letting anyone back in when theyāve been evicted by the public just isnāt right.
I would say, though a fantastic series, that BB7 was the beginning of the end for Big Brother as a cultural talking point. The minute they messed with those BB fundamentals, the whole format was up for grabs, they could mess around with anything, the public lose sight of what the show is about when youāre changing the rules all the time. So BB8 came along and was perfectly acceptable. I would argue that it had far too many knowing housemates. Chanelle made several blatant attempts at becoming the new Nikki with some excruciatingly exaggerated tantrums. We had out first ever BB superfan housemate in Brian Belo. We had a weird twist where they only put women in for the first week. Completely pointless. Looking back, there were so many examples of BB losing its way in this series. BB7 had created a small puncture and BB8 was failing to contain the water damage. Then BB9 came along and added several more punctures.
I hate Big Brother 9. I think itās trashy and gross. Itās grubby. The house was full of incredibly unlikeable characters along with some entirely forgettable ones. It was all so crude and unpleasant. There was an incident where Dennis spat in Mohammedās face and was ejected. There was Alexandra threatening people with her gang friends on the outside. There was Mikey who was vile. Rex who was horrible. Darnell who later appeared in porn with Bex from this series and Billi from BB8. Just grubby and, for me, not what Big Brother should be about. Everyone was crass and loud and fame hungry and dreadful. BB is accused of being that all the time but for 80% of the time, it isnāt. Sadly, this series lived up to critics perceptions and it was awful. Iād say the only good thing BB9 did was give us Lisa Appleton who I am still obsessed with. I could look at pictures of her putting the bins out whilst eating a saveloy all day.
After BB9, Big Brother had lost the public. BB9 was the one that stuck a knife in Big Brotherās cultural significance. The show never recovered. Big Brother 10 was a vast improvement but nobody knew because ratings went down by a third. Itās amazing that BB10 was actually on Channel 4. Although I guess ITV keep chucking The Voice and The X Factor on air and nobody cares about those. Telly is weird.
BB10 was great, it toned down on the vile people and we had a bunch of genuinely interesting people. It wasnāt as fast paced as the previous 5 series which was actually a relief. The balance was right again but by this point Big Brother was far from the only reality show around. Structured reality was creeping in and BB couldnāt compete with faked storylines. The publicās attention span for watching a bunch of fairly nice people make a few friends, have a few bust ups and a couple of romances just wasnāt there. Society had changed and Big Brother had been left behind.
Channel 4 then announced it was cancelling the show. Nobody was particularly surprised. BB11 would be the last series of all time which actually got ratings up slightly. I loved Big Brother 11. Shabby and Caoimheās unrequited love storyline was the first weād seen between two girls. BB superfan Mario being picked at random from a huge group of hopefuls on launch night was great and his task at being BBās secret mole while having to dress as a mole and wear a sign sayingĀ āI am a moleā showed that BB was back to being silly and fun. There was a talking chest of drawers that gave housemates secret tasks and plenty of really great, imaginative and fun tasks throughout. BB had finally shown what sort of show it could be but, sadly, it was too late. The seriesā winner Josie Gibson was one of the best winners BB had and her relationship with the fascinating John James was amazing to watch. To see a handsome, toned, blonde, Australian surfer guy fall for a normal, plus-sized girl from a Bristol farm was something that only Big Brother could give you.Ā
Then we had an underwhelming Ultimate Big Brother which was deservedly won by Ultimate Housemate Brian Dowling and BB was gone. I was sad to see it go but I understood why and looked forward to its inevitable return a few years down the line. But then Channel 5 came knocking and the show was reborn. Now, Iām grateful to C5 for giving the show a second chance and brining us a new era of BB. They took Celebrity Big Brother and ran with it, creating a huge number of iconic telly. Kim Woodburn, Perez Hilton, Gemma Collins and so many more completely insane celebrities have made TV gold on C5ā²s version of CBB and it has been amazing. But, much as I love CBB, my heart is with Civilian and Iām not sure it has ever been quite right on Channel 5.
The moment it first began, things were different. The editing, the music, the way the housemates names would constantly come up like I was watching an episode of TOWIE. Big Brother was finally trying to fit in with the modern crowd of reality shows and it looked like an embarrassing dad trying to hang out with the cool kids. Just be yourself, BB. All the show ever needed to be was itself and things would have been fine, this yearās series has proved that. Unfortunately, the show just became less and less itself and completely lost its way.
One thing I will say about C5 is that Emma Willis and Rylan Clark-Neal have been absolutely incredible. They both love Big Brother as much as the fans and itās so appreciated. After a shaky start with poor old Brian Dowling hosting, Emma took his place and did Davina proud. Of course Davina McCall will always be THE host of Big Brother but Emma has done a perfect job and made the role her own. Rylan has been a brilliant Bit On The Side host. Following Dermot OāLeary and Russell Brand as BB sister show hosts is not an easy task but Rylan has been just as wonderful as both of them. Davina, Dermot, Russell, Emma and Rylan all did amazing jobs hosting BB and BB related shows and Iām thrilled to have been there with them the whole time.
Of course, there have been moments of greatness on C5. Itās Big Brother for goodness sake. I enjoyed Aaron winning the first C5 series and being the first winner to be booed when he left. I enjoyed Luke A showing everyone that trans men exist too and becoming the second trans winner. I enjoyed a lot and I never stopped watching. The first three series on C5 sort of passed everyone by, including me really. I watched them and enjoyed them but I wasnāt hugely fussed.
Then Big Brother 14 happened and BB lost itself completely. Firstly, Zoe Birkett from Pop Idol was in civilian Big Brother. There had literally been dozens of far less famous people than her in the celebrity version. Due to the success of CBB, C5 were clearly mixing the two together and it was awful. The housemates were now being scouted. We had the same people who were also trying to get on X Factor, The Apprentice, Britainās Got Talent etc etc. People that just want to be on telly. NOT people who want to be on Big Brother.Ā
One of those people was the odious Helen Wood. One of the most poisonous and vile people ever to step foot in that house. Due to an insanely misjudged opening week task, Helen won a pass to the final. This meant that her bullying and nasty behaviour was left unpunished for weeks. Nobody could nominate her. Decent people were stuck in a house with her and it was genuinely unpleasant to watch. Without the pass, she would have been evicted very quickly but with it she was able to gain popularity with people who found her bullyingĀ āentertainingā and she ended up winning the show. It was BBās lowest point.
The next year, the house was full of reality TV rejects again. It was a weird series and BB seemed to be changing the rules all over the place. Twists were thrown in at an alarming rate. Someone was evicted on the first night. Then on Day 18, 4 housemates were evicted and replaced by another 4... essentially starting the series again because the entire house dynamic changed. This was unbelievably alienating for viewers and it went down terribly. It was completely dreadful. Then, as if the series wasnāt enough of a mess, they put Helen Wood back in the house as a guest. Helen spent her time being vile again, to the point where Brian Belo (another guest) escaped after she drove him to tears. Afterwards, Helen ended up having some sort of fight backstage and sheās since been banned from all BB shows and events. Quite right too. Mental that they ever put her back in.
BB17 was a slight improvement but it was still full of reality show rejects and still had weird twists like letting Jason evict Lateysha without a public vote. Madness. But the series did feel like BB was finding its way again and I enjoyed it more than I had for a while.
Then we had BB18. I really really liked BB18. Unfortunately, the house probably had the most reality rejects itās ever had. With about half the house having been on Ex On The Beach or Ibiza Weekender. All these crappy cheap reality shows clearly being the easiest place to grab a housemate from. Easier for producers than sitting through thousands of audition tapes, I suppose! Anyway, despite this, the series was pretty great. Going back to the classic two bedrooms created two camps and I absolutely love BB when it feels like there are two camps. We had Rose Cottage and Thorn Cottage and I was fully Team Thorn all the way. Brilliant housemates like Raph, Hannah, Deborah, Chanelle and Isabelle really made the show watchable again and I loved it. It still had a lot of flaws but it was a really enjoyable series and I was so pleased to see so many of Thorn Cottage in the final week.
Then the wait for BB19 began. It was a longer wait than usual as we all heard rumours than Channel 5 didnāt want BB anymore. Celeb BB ended and then another came around and still there hadnāt been a civilian series. The second CBB had been pretty great and BB fans had high copes that the next civilian would deliver and be what weāve hoped for for such a long time. Then the news broke on the day of launch night. Channel 5 were cancelling Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother. Big Brother 19 would be the last series ever.
The news was upsetting but not surprising, it was only made worse when BB19 started and it was so instantly incredible. The housemates had been chosen properly and they were great, the launch night had so many nods to the old days, the house looked wonderful and the launch night twist introducing Big Coins to the game was amazing. Then we were blessed with so many brilliant and inventive tasks. The show was back doing what it should have been doing the whole time. But AGAIN, it was too late. For the second time, BB had been axed and then decided to pull its socks up and be brilliant. Why does it always have to be too late?
Iāve loved this final series. There have been one or two issues towards the end but ultimately itās been a really brilliant bunch of housemates who I think have been worthy of possibly being the final people to call the Big Brother house home.Ā
So now itās gone and I can get on with my life. BB does take up a lot of my time when itās on and I have watched every single series since the year 2000. Thatās a lot of time so part of me is glad, I wonāt lie. If it comes back though, Iāll be here and Iāll watch it because Iām a FAN. Being a proper fan of Big Brother means you donāt give up when itās dull or when the producers seem to be losing their minds or when the rest of the country moves on to Love Island. We love Big Brother, not the genre it spawned or the countless, meaningless reality shows that wouldnāt exist without it. People often label me a āreality TV fanā but Iām not. I just love Big Brother, thatās all. Itās the original and it will always be the best. People may say itās not what it used to be but those people arenāt watching it anymore so Iāve no idea how they could possibly know. The show has always been the same deep down. Itās about watching and connecting with a bunch of strangers for a few months. Loving them, hating them, learning from them, feeling for them and generally being fascinated by the different ways that human beings interact. There are now hundreds of shows like it but none of those shows do it quite like Big Brother does it.Ā
Big Brother is a very special television programme and I love it unashamedly.
Itās gone for now but I have a feeling that one day, Big Brother will get back to us.