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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Big Brother: Revenge of the Sixth.

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00:38 / 17.05.05

I am already being sucked in by the subliminal 'eye' flashes and the trailers, and I really, really didn't want to watch it this year. I had convinced myself I had far more important things to do. I do have far more important things to do but still I know I shall find myself giving a shit, even though I was determined not to.

But that's not why I have started this thread. I have started this thread because I want to know what the hell is in the plastic wrapped boxes the selected general public were so keen to get their hands on in the trailer?

10:47 / 17.05.05

Damn and blast. I knew I should've dived in there and actually started the thread for a change.

I'm getting cravings already...

Tom Tit's Tot: A Girl!

11:24 / 17.05.05

You're all brain-sick, you are!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:28 / 17.05.05

Much as I always avoid this like the plague, this year I have a client who wants ALL coverage on the fucker. So I'll be relying on you buggers to keep me informed so I can acrually UNDERSTAND said coverage.

16:38 / 18.05.05

My money is on Dwayne this year. Even though he may be a figment of my imagination, Dwayne to win.

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

02:29 / 20.05.05

So I'll be relying on you buggers to keep me informed so I can acrually UNDERSTAND said coverage
Likewise - not only am I out of the country, but my main source of computerage is an old-school twigs 'n' sellotape number that has enough difficulty with large brightly coloured pictures, let alone minute-by-minute StalkerVision of the sleeping prey...

*ahem*. Do keep me updated, won't you?

22:41 / 20.05.05

i leave for america on the 23rd june, which gives me just enough time to be aggresivly and hopelessly addicted. before i have to piss off and miss it all.

im gonna NEEEEEEEEED updates and commentary

admit it belle, you started this thread early because you thought of the cool name.

22:48 / 20.05.05

Don't worry. I am limbering up, and imbibing copious quantities of Essence of Jon Snow/Desmond Morris. You will be kept informed. Possibly overinformed.

22:59 / 20.05.05

I notice that E4's going Freeview soon, for all those that have the relevant boxes. And nothing better to do.

23:13 / 20.05.05

I think that it may be time to get "our little man that does" up on the roof of cube Towers to fix our aerial, so we can buy one of those newfangled boxes. It may also help one's reviewing of digital TV for national media if I ever watch the farker.

Tryphena Absent

01:15 / 21.05.05

I cannot BELIEVE we already have a thread on Big Brother! Well done Olulabelle! The TV tells me we only have 7 days left until it begins. Please, plese, pliz let it be as good as last year.

04:35 / 21.05.05

I have a client who wants ALL coverage on the fucker

Think of yourself as Hunter S T during the McGovern campaign, Stoat - TOTAL COVERAGE is the only way forward. Watching this year's Big Brother fiasco from end to end will provide you with more immediate insights into what the hell's gone wrong with this country of ours than anything leading up to May 5th this year, damnit - It seems like you're uniquely placed to anatomise the horror of it all, and under the circumstances, it's ok to be stoned the whole time, in fact I think it's possibly probably totally mandatory, just as long as you get the goddamn story.

There's a novel in there somewhere, I'm convinced, you could call it... well there probably aren't really any words for that, at the moment, but I'm sure something appropriate'll suggest itself, over time.

Meanwhile, what in god's name has possessed this client of yours, d'you think ? He's bound to want all the taped footage as well, all nine solid weeks of it. Though for what purposes, frankly, I can scarcely imagine.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:14 / 21.05.05

I don't think we're supposed to say who our clients actually, are, but put it this way- it's a TV channel. Whose name ends in a number. Having spent five hours sorting out all the references to the show in the sodding TV listings this morning, they're not my favourite channel, either.

15:34 / 21.05.05

Oh the joy! I only got a freeview box a few days ago, E4 on freeview just as BB comes back is such a lovely gift.

16:06 / 21.05.05

Much as I always avoid this like the plague, this year I have a client who wants ALL coverage on the fucker.

Haha, I avoid it like the plague too. I feel totally sorry for you that you have to gather coverage!

I am so dreading the re-arising of this Leviathon of a nightmare, really, but it'll give me many opportunities to work on controlling my anger and sheer-confusion-rage-of HELL, whenever it first raises it's ugly head.

Really, I wouldn't mind but it's so damn fucking long! A week extra I think aswell this time around. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it, and I'll do my utmost not to post in this thread again, unless I catch sight of something insanely funny during the marathon trek of the demented beast.

(I'm sorry to verge on trolling here too, but I had to let Stoatie know that I feel sorry for him with the job he has ahead of him.)

22:37 / 21.05.05

Has anyone else looked onto the BB website (saved onto their favourites of course) to see if there's anything on it yet? Or am I the only sad fucker who has?

22:38 / 21.05.05

No, I've looked too. Not a lot to see yet, though...

22:54 / 21.05.05

Thought you would've looked, Ganesh! Have even found myself trying to remember the text numbers! Need to get out more, methinks!

23:24 / 21.05.05

Rumour has it that one contestant will be a Mecha Droid from Epsilon Prime, another The Most Honoured Ambassador KWRK from beyond the Barrion Sphere...

sparks

will

fly!

I was pretty much hooked last year. Me and my mate were crushed when the best big brother entertainment evah (Kitten) was evicted and likewise when Jason got into the top 2. Last year was an absolutely explosive so
I do wonder where BB can go without resorting to absolute degradation and humiliation of the contestants. That being said I hope it stays EVIL.

02:10 / 22.05.05

Yesterday, on E4, there was eight full hours of BB audition tapes. Of which I watched three, feeling more and more morally compromised with every ad break, like Henry the 8th, just before the end. But there's still time.

This summer, I'd like to to play tennis and so on, read TS Elliot, start a business, think about buying a boat for a tenner at one of those police auctions where they ( unfairly perhaps, but it's all about business, ) sell off goods that hard-working smugglers don't have access to any more, for legal reasons. Anything, in other words, than facing the ongoing crucifction that C4 will be dishing out nightly, for the next few months.

Three hours of the prospective applicants, and it feels like something awful's got loose in my mind...

Or am I just being a prude ?

10:49 / 22.05.05

No, but there's nothing to stop you from spending your summer doing whatever you want to do. Nobody's forcing you to watch the damn thing.

Should we be attempting to keep this thread clear for the start of the series itself, or is it fair enough, in the meantime, to talk more generally about the Big Brother concept?

11:06 / 22.05.05

I think it's ok to discuss the concept.

I'll be watching all of it, of course, but what's this year's going to be like - are the producers going to go even 'darker' than last year ? Or given the fact that what's-her-name nearly ended up on charges for assault after that incident in the bathroom with Victor, will they be at least attempting to keep a lid on that kind of behaviour ?

My feeling is, not.

11:11 / 22.05.05

I expect they'll go for as volatile a mix of individual personalities, since that was essentially why last year's was a success, but gird 'em with even more legal stuff regarding what's their responsibility and what's the producers' responsibility.

13:08 / 22.05.05

What did you think of the Russell Brand forum for big brother discussion, do you think the format worked well?
I think alot of the success of previous big brothers comes when the camp polarises into disctinct groups, it certainly did last year. They even tried to engineer it in Big Brother 3? as some kind of faux social experiment with the rich and poor side to foster some resentment and avid bitching.
They probably have to think alot about who are more likely to form alliances when picking contestants too.

13:19 / 22.05.05

Thoughts on the mix of sexualities this year? More gay or less? After most of the open people got voted off early last year is it possible the producers are going to ease off on putting in identified (thanks, Playing It Straight thread) homosexuals thinking that angle is played out, or at least unpopular. Or are they going to think "Well, gays = tension, tension = drama, drama = ratings! Bring me some poofs!"?

13:46 / 22.05.05

Kitten and wotsisface last year were both easy fits for specific and obvious stereotypes on initial inspection, remember, and were pumped to play those roles (whether that pumping was by the other housemates or the producers). When it comes to that, though, so was everybody else, pretty much.

11:26 / 23.05.05

Glancing at the BB Hopefuls trial in work. Pink hair Girl to win!

All Acting Regiment

11:41 / 23.05.05

I'm not going to barge in here and claim any kind of moral or intellectual superiority, but- having visited one of the concentration camps in Poland I find it impossible to look at this program without feeling a surge of disgust.

I know that the Big Brother television program is not the same as a Nazi atrocity; you don't need to tell me that- but still, the thousands watching as people are put through humiliating tasks which everybody beleives to be fun, i find it makes me want to smash the TV.

Again, I'm not claiming any kind of insight other than the personal feeling that the whole setup of people being imprisoned and watched for fun is just wrong. I find I can understand why older people look at the show with such scorn: not so much for what it is but for what it could become, the precedent it sets.

11:54 / 23.05.05

But Legba, quite apart from the myriad of other differences between Nazi concentration camps and Big Brother, the fairly key thing is that the BB contestants willingly volunteer themselves, mainly in order to get some fleeting fame and become a temporary Z-list celebrity. (I have never understood this since whilst they're inside they don't see the media coverage they are getting, and once they come out of the house the fame stops and no-one cares anymore.)

However, the fact remains that they desperately want to be in there.

I suppose that the first series contestants may not have had any idea what they were in for, but all the contestants after that know very well what's going to happen to them and they love it. I shouldn't worry about them if I were you.

14:32 / 24.05.05

I think drawing comparisons between Big Brother and Belsen is a bit controversial don't you? More like self mutilation you know it's wrong but you just can't stop.

I was watching some of the try outs during breakfast; it's time to confess which one of you was the guy who used to be a moderator on BLEEP and BLEEP whose interests include AquaTeenHungerForce.

16:27 / 24.05.05

Legba, I'm more creeped out by the fact that you're trivialising the deaths of camp victims by comparing them to this piece of pop culture fluff.

Whisky Priestess

17:36 / 24.05.05

I think it's more like that famous experiment where voulnteers were asked by a white-coated authority figure to keep electrically shocking someone in the next room "in the name of science". For this read fame.

BB is a huge reinforced vessel of peer pressure. Whenever they want the housemates to do awful stuff they appeal to the "team spirit" or threaten to shame them in front of/punish their fellow inmates. Like when Kitten was refusing to leave the house, all they had to do was start taking away the money from the others and her support (and resolve) just melted.

17:59 / 24.05.05

Wow that correlates strongly.
But wasn't the crux of that experiment to establish what people would do when ordered by an authority figure (and apologies for the clunky language) i.e. that is where people would place their trust. In this external "authority" or within themselves to way up the situation; pros, cons and morality, which I suppose also corresponds with BB.

18:01 / 24.05.05

Okay I appear to have completely misread Whisky's post.
So yeah what she said.
But surely no one believes that nothing bad can happen on big brother by know despite the reassuring authority figure? I mean truly.

22:42 / 24.05.05

After I first discovered Barbelith a few months ago I spent countless hours trawling through the archives, including reading the whole of the Big Brother 5 thread. (No, really). Prior to that, I was making the usual half-hearted promises about how I wasn’t going to watch it this year, but immediately changed my mind. Even six months late, you lot were at least as entertaining as the show itself.

I saw my sister the other day, and learnt, with a mixture of fascination and horror, that she’s in the running to be one of the obsessive fans on the eforum (or whatever they’re calling it this year). They tested her, and everything. (Name the participants in the first Big Brother kiss...Name every housemate who entered late...Name the first housemate evicted in year two. And so on...)

Oh, and: note to late-Friday-evening self: you think you hate them all. It won’t last. Give them a week or so...

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