Wednesday April 25: The first full day in the house actually concealed more than it revealed. The advertisements made much of Andy inviting Johnnie to share her bed, but this wasn't very titilating, since everyone knows Johnnie's gay (a subject the first episode dodged around but which tonight's broadcast confirmed, if there was ever any doubt). Other than this, the big events of the day seemed to be feeding the chooks, buying toilet paper and facing up to the first challenge: memorising lots of personal details about all the other contestants. Personally, I think they'll fail, since some of them don't even seem to be able to remember basic rules of the game (such as how the betting on challenges works).

After watching the show, I logged onto the site and registered. Every time I try to launch the live feed, my PC crashes, which can't be a good sign (but is probably my fault, not the site's, given my long history of technology screw-ups). Interestingly, while the TV show is heavily promoting the 'mystery' visit to hospital, the site has the whole story of Jemma's injury complete -- an inevitable problem when there's such a long delay between the 'live' site and the edited broadcasts. Also, there's a whole incident with Todd concealing a fake condom in the kitchen that was totally concealed -- why?

Random observations:

Thursday April 26: Cheats! We finally got some shower footage -- indeed, Andy spent the middle part of the episode roaming around wrapped in just a towel -- but every time there was even a threat of breast or genital, one of those block-out squares which I thought only appeared on cheap porn films appeared. And to add insult to injury, most of the detail from the much-touted Jemma hospital visit is being saved for the Sunday episode, when the first resident gets voted out. I wonder if they're saving the footage of her demonstrating her bondage skills on Todd for the Sunday episode as well?

The episode demonstrates the role which editing will play in people getting voted off. Throughout the sequences where Jemma was injured, the camera kept cutting back to Andy playing in the pool, apparently oblivious to it all. This made her look like a right bitch. While Jemma's absence led to several comments about how hard it would be to vote someone out, Christina visited the diary room to point out how she wanted to disagree with people. There's also a hint of romance between Peter and Christina, which should help up the shag quotient.

On that note, the site this evening notes that a discussion has taken place on who would be willing to actually go ahead and shag, with Blair and Ben effectively in favour, while Christina, Lisa and Sharna were opposed. Media speculation already has it that Blair is going to win.

Random observations:

Friday April 27: Hot stuff! Ten totally ruined any chance of people paying attention to the challenge quiz by showing footage of Christina and Peter in bed together right at the beginning. (Us obsessed Net site visitors knew that they'd won, anyway.)

Having tempted us with that, we had to wait until after the ad break for the show to deliver anything other than footage of rain (I'd feel sorry for 'em but it's been raining here all week) and various bits of chicken excitement. The only notable development was that Blair appeared to want to crack onto Christina as well, but, again, we all knew that wasn't going to happen.

While C+P stopped short of actually shagging (she's worried what her parents would think), it looks more or less inevitable. And if they don't, Andy apparently wants to shag everyone in sight, but especially Christina. Kinky or what? In the end, she shared her bed with Sara-Marie. Now she's admitted to being spectacularly free and easy, it's obvious why Andy made straight for the double bed on the first night.

Random observations:

Unexpected Saturday update: Channel 10 is definitely up to something. This morning, the picture of Christina and Peter on the site (the one with the suspicious filename ending in 'handjob' that was inaccessible) has been replaced with a completely different image, this one ending in the rather less suspicious 'under_covers'. The image also has a completely different ID number. Did someone get bored in the Big Brother Web production office and put up an adult image?

I'm obviously turning into some kind of Big Brother psychic. After writing last night that Channel 10 needs some late night specials with the raunchy bits, I read in this morning's papers that next Thursday at 9:30 there'll be a special black label edition of the show. That should get the viewers in.

Sunday April 29: Eviction time! If someone had told me I'd be waiting breathlessly for the nominations of this show, I'd have said they were mad. But I was. I even took a note as all the scores came on, which turned out to be a good idea, since there was an ad break between the last nomination and the announcement. It was obvious Andy and Gordon were for the chop, because she's very weird and he's kind of weird but mostly not that obvious, but I thought Sharna might have been next out. (With four points, she was next cab off the rank).

The reasons everyone gave were a bit dull; mostly just variations on "he/she is the person I feel least connected to/spent the least time with". Exceptions to this rule were Ben, who saw Gordon as a threat; Peter, who said Andy was "a bit pushier than the rest"; Gordon, who said Andy was "demanding in an unneccessary way"; Andy, who claimed Sharna just didn't fit in the group; and golden boy Blair, who admitted frankly that Andy "gets on my nerves".

Now, of course, I have to decide who to vote for. It's definitely not Gordon, because he was the only nominee who admitted that he might not get on with some people. Both Andy and Sara-Marie just whined and said the house would be boring without them. I don't think that's true of Sara-Marie, so she might get my vote, but I'll wait a couple of days. I suspect Andy's stocks with viewers will go up after the adults-only special on Thursday.

Random observations:

Monday April 30: We're finally starting to get more footage of secret midnight conversations, which is definitely upping the drama factor. Sharna and Lisa both hate Christina, essentially because they think she's a pricktease; Sara-Marie is advising Christina to act more like a pricktease until she's sure of Peter's motives. Peter, perhaps unsurprisingly, seems unwilling to discuss complex emotional matters with a camera pointed at him, although he's quite happy to be filmed sniffing his own armpits.

After receiving this week's challenge -- building a fire and keeping it going for 78 hours with a continuous two-person guard, which us Web site addicts got told about Sunday evening -- the focus moved to a ballet lesson in drag for the boys, which led Ben to come dangerously close to flashing his penis not just at a viewing audience of millions, but the dozen or so people in the house. This sequence is the first one I've ever watched on the Webcast that's made it to the finished product, although they didn't include the later appearance of what looked like a vibrator. Still, there's always the adult episode on Thursday.

Random observations:

Tuesday May 1: Blair and Sharna's birthday celebrations formed the backbone of tonight's episode -- and Blair getting teary over the video messages from his family was surprisingly moving -- but by far the most interesting development was Sara-Marie's screwing up the rule about two people being near the fire and then acting like it was totally not her responsibility. I think she should get the boot, and I bet Peter (for one) nominates her this weekend.

The advance promotion on the episode centred on Sharna apparently getting shagged by Johnnie, but it wasn't entirely clear from the footage we saw that it actually happened. There was also a nice bitchy shot of Andy passed out early in the proceedings, giving the lie to her 'life of the party' pose.

Random observations:

Wednesday May 2: A relatively quiet day in the house today, as everyone sleeps off their hangovers from the night before. It seems Johnnie didn't shag Sharna, but Peter may have shagged Christina. Blair claims Christina is "just a sister figure", so he's hanging back.

By far the most notable development was another one of those moments that demonstrate how removed what appears on the show is from what we learn from the site. During the conversations on first loves, Johnnie said he had a crush on a girl in high school. Yet the site makes it clear that Johnnie considered his "first love" to be a guy he was involved with for six months at the age of 20. Similarly, Peter told a story about a girl he met on the Gold Coast, but his line about his mum being his "real first love" didn't make the broadcast. Hmmm.

Random observations:

Thursday May 3: The regular episode proved interesting mostly because Andy finally looked like she was going to score with someone, after almost two weeks of proclaiming herself superslut extraordinaire. Of course, we're not getting told yet if she actually got it on with Gordon . . .

But it's Thursday, and what we were all hanging out for is Big Brother Uncut, so we could ogle everyone without any clothes on. And while the episode delivered that in droves -- they even showed the odd penis, which is pretty rare for network television, as well as Andy's and Sara-Marie's breasts every 3.5 seconds and lots of bondage instances-- what was really interesting was that a lot of things that haven't been clear in the main broadcasts became apparent.

Thus we learnt, for sure, that Peter and Christina had got it on; and, perhaps even more importantly, we learnt that everyone else in the house knew that they'd got it on. Indeed, the number of conversations generally going on about sex was much higher than anyone watching the 7:00pm broadcasts (or even the Netcasts) would suspect.

The other effect of all this sex talk was to make Andy look much more human. Whereas she's come across in the normal show as an aloof bitch, her sexual strategising actually made her look more compassionate, not less. Conversely, Sara-Marie's blanket comment that Andy must be a "nymphomaniac" made her look harsh and judgemental. This whole episode made up my mind; I'm voting to get rid of Sara-Marie.

Random observations:

Friday May 4: Inevitably a little quieter after all the shocks of Thursday, perhaps the most notable development was that Sara-Marie is still a whining scrag. While the main suspsense centred on whether the fire task had been completed successfully, us online folks already knew the answer. However, Sara-Marie's ungracious whopping just reinforced her status as a non-team player. She's got to go.

Random observations:

Sunday May 6: "Andy, it's time to go." And boy, was I pissed off. Not because I'm a huge Andy fan -- which, to judge from the crowd reaction, put me in a minority -- but because I really wanted to see Sara-Marie get the boot. It's even more galling that there was only 4% difference between Andy and Queen Skank.

On the other hand, Andy herself made for really good post-exit interview material, and she had (by her standards) quite a dignified response to the whole thing. While it was obviously partly a defensive mechanism, I think there was a glimmer of truth in Andy's comment that she was beginning to get bored in the house. I'm glad to see she was pissed off with Johhnie over his nomination of her, followed by buckets of fake sympathy. And I can't even begin to imagine what she'll be like on Thursday's 'uncut' episode, or on Rove this Tuesday.

I guess the only consolation is that Sara-Marie's almost guaranteed to get renominated because of the fire fracas, and judging from this week's vote, she'll be history. Notably, she also got the biggest boos from the crowd.

Random observations:

Monday May 7: With Andy gone, the whole house has become much more territiorial. There's nothing new in hearing Sara-Marie whine, and her incessant whinging to Johnnie about how much Todd smells got really old really quickly, but it was interesting to watch some of the others crack.

In particular, Jemma's whinging about Gordon was a bit unexpected -- although the show was edited in such a way as to make it clear she wasn't just being paranoid. "I will need female contact if I'm going to stay here for fucking 12 weeks!" Charming. Interestingly, nearly all the major plot points from tonight had been previewed on the site -- are they running low on material?

Random observations:

Tuesday May 8: I didn't get around to watching this episode until fairly late at night, but I'd been unable to resist logging in to the site and discovering that Christina, Peter and Sharna were nominated. None of these were particularly surprising, but I was shocked at how few people even nominated Sara-Marie. Obviously the fire incident was a long way from their minds by then.

That aside, it was the Sharna meltdown that prompted most of the best bits in the episode, and there should be more total spack-outs this evening. It would seem likely that the audience vote will be for her to go, but then again, what would I know? I thought Sara-Marie was a certainty for the chop!

Random observations:

Wednesday May 9: What in God's name does Sharna think she's playing at? Not only is her incessant sulking likely to see her nominated again next week, but it's definitely not going to endear her to viewers. I almost warmed to her when she made her "hello, losers" comment to Peter and Christina early on, but by the end of the episode she just looked self-pitying.

Johnnie's attempts to comfort her also reeked of the same cynicism as his similar moves with Andy last week. OK, I know he has to nominate someone, but he doesn't then have to act all Mr Sympathetic.

The ongoing circus training is making the whole thing look quite surreal, with people juggling in the background while all around is chaos. Despite this, I'll be really surprised if the team actually succeed in this challenge.

Random observations:

Thursday May 10: With bitch mode turned down to low, I almost felt sorry for Sharna this evening; she certainly looked like a wreck when she woke up! But despite her last-minute circus enthusiasm, I still can't imagine she won't get voted off.

The song-writing made for some good viewing. Will they recut it, add the BB theme music and release a single while they're still in there?

But enough of that, it's Thursday, and that means Big Brother Uncut. Unlike last week's episode, this didn't advance the plot much, but it was hysterically funny 80% of the way through. It was interesting that Andy hadn't really realised that Christina and Peter got it on. It was also interesting that she refused cunnilingus from Sara-Marie ("no thanks, I don't like that"), but no great surprise that she'd picked Sharna to go. Having her as a co-host also seemed to work better than just Gretel on her own without a studio audience.

Notably, neither Jemma nor Lisa seem to get involved much in the late-night sex conversations. Ben also seems more likely to admit to stuff when there aren't too many women around.

In what's probably a telling comment on me, most of my notes from tonight's show consist of rampantly filthy quotes from various participants. So here they are:

Random observations:

Friday May 11: Circus time! While the group didn't succeed in the goal, it was certainly entertaining enough watching them. And it provided yet another opportunity for Skanka-Marie to demonstrate her lack of commitment to the team effort: "I'm enjoying myself . . . I'm not gonna stress myself!" Predictably, she stuffed up.

As ever, the TV show didn't tell the whole story; it didn't mention, for instance, that the reward for the human pyramid task was an extra hour's hot water. Sharna was much less visibly aggravating, and she actually gets around to apologising tomorrow, but I still can't help thinking she's history.

Random observations:

Saturday May 12: While the BB site went into a detailed explanation of how Sharna had first apologised to Jemma and then to the group as a whole, the whole issue was lucky to rate two minutes in the broadcast version. This seems a little unfair to Sharna, since it makes her look like even more of a bitch than she already is, but it might have been a case of too little, too late anyway.

As ever, the Saturday show was a fairly slow affair. Notably, the guest appearance by Krista Vendy from Neighbours was upstaged by one of the show's producers, whose revelation that Peter and Christina had been warned about not colluding on votes was far more interesting than Ms Vendy herself.

Random observations:

Sunday May 13: "I don't wanna go . . . I'm gone." Indeed, with 76% of the vote, Sharna's was a much more convincing dismissal than Andy's. But she handled it with grace, maintaining her bluntness and characteristic honesty throughout the questioning. In fact, she seemed less upset with being evicted than with being nominated in the first place. They finally showed the footage of her apologising, but with that vote figure it's unlikely that could have made any real difference.

It was very pleasing to see Sharna's outburst when she realised Johnnie had nominated her. "I'm not two-faced!" she exploded. She also didn't look too pleased when she saw Ben nominating her, but it didn't stop her selecting him as the house member she could fall in love with. Despite saying Todd was her least-favourite member of the house, she never gave him any points during nominations.

They're bringing her back for the Saturday show next week; obviously there ain't enough nude footage around, probably because of her careful-with-the-towel tactic. Hopefully, on Tuesday Skanka-Marie will be in the limelight again. Or is it Todd's turn to suffer?

Random observations:

Monday May 14: Because the show mostly covers Sunday pre-eviction, and we all already know the results, there's not always too much new development come Monday night. However, there was plenty of simmering tension building up, especially between Lisa and Gordon. It was good to find out as well that Christina had seen through Johnnie's nice guy image, and had correctly deduced that he had nominated her the previous week.

The blocked toilet was also an interesting plot development, if only because it showed that even in as well-planned an environment as Big Brother, things can still go wrong. But just how much longer can one copy of Lord Of The Flies hold out?

Random observations:

Tuesday May 15: Yes! Sara-Marie is back in the nomination fold! Unless Todd is far less popular with the public than we have previously supposed, then she's probably going to get the boot; after all, when she went head-to-head with Gordon last time, she scored nearly three times his vote. I also had to make more than half-a-dozen redials at 7:30 to get through to her eviction line.

What was surprising was how far in front Gordon was; with nine points, he was streeets ahead of Todd and Sara-Marie, who only got four each. Blair and Johnnie have maintained their record of no nomination points; how much longer can that last? The next runners are Jemma and Lisa, each of whom have run up just five points in three rounds. Ben is close behind on six.

Obviously, the programmers were hoping for a dramatic Sharna-style spackout during the live nomination period. It didn't happen, with indifference seeming the main reaction, but maybe everyone was remembering the impact of Sharna's reaction. It was interesting watching the housemates speculate about if they were still being broadcast, but why didn't the programmers do the obvious thing: throw on Boney M and force everyone to get up and dance?

Random observations:

Wednesday May 16: Maybe I'm just a sadist, but I really enjoyed the way that Big Brother totally wrecked Johnnie's attempts at meditation by playing his dance marathon song three times this evening. What probably seemed to the housemates like a very simple task is turning out to be rather stressful! I'd also concur with Todd's observation that Sara-Marie would be the most likely to mess up the challenge ("if anyone's gonna fuck it"), although it should be said that Todd's own dancing in the group 'Daddy Cool' number was nothing to write home about.

Not much else emerged aside from the dancing frenzy, since most of the footage came before yesterday's live nomination. Gordon is not doing himself any favours by raving on about the gender imbalance; does he really think he's going to get any action with the remaining women as it is?

Random observations:

Thursday May 17: Timing is everything when you're watching Big Brother. I didn't get to see either of today's shows until Friday afternoon, but by then I'd already visited the site so I knew the whole 'wedding' routine was a joke, and that the dance task had been completed successfully.

The biggest outcome from the whole wedding setup was to reveal (yet again) Sara-Marie's skankiness and Johnnie's constant attempts to be Mr Nice Guy. Her comment was a flat "I'm going on strike", while Johnnie volunteered to talk to Todd.

Meanwhile, Gordon's continuing attempts to jump Jemma are failing, and mightn't help his chances of getting booted off. (Nor will remarks if "I was single I'd do you sideways" to Sara-Marie, when it's obvious that his relationship wouldn't be an impediment in Jemma's case.)

Uncut was the usual hysterical roundup of sex-related dialogues, although I was disappointed that they didn't choose to pick on Blair this time around. The whole penis size conversation was a particular highlight, even if some of the female expectations seemed a bit unreasonable. As Ben remarked: "What are you with, bulls?" The 'should Jemma's muff get an airing?' discussion was . . . well . . . odd.

Random observations:

Friday May 18: In their overseas versions, stars of reality shows such as Big Brother have often gone on to pursue media careers. To judge from the attempts at filming advertisements for the 40 Hour Famine on tonight's episode, this is not a path that the Australian housemates will be pursuing. (Admittedly, I could see Andy going for a hosting job on a late night sex chat show, but so far appearing at suburban RSLs seems to be her main gig.)

While supporting the Famine is a worthy cause, it does mean that everyone has spent even more time lying around than usual, which doesn't make for compelling television. However, it's perhaps not so surprising that Ten jumped at the suggestion; this way, there won't be too much going on during Friday, and hence it won't be so hard to compress everything for the Saturday night edition of the show.

Random observations:

Saturday May 19: With nothing much more than the usual family and friends footage, perhaps the most interesting feature of tonight's broadcast was the revelation of the voting figures. Sara-Marie is narrowly in front, but all that could change by tomorrow.

Libby Gorr made a good guest for discussing the implications of household relationships, and certainly worked a lot better than the endless psychiatrists they've been reeling out. Maybe she should become a regular.

Random observations:

Sunday May 20: "No idea at all." And it seems the housemates weren't expecting Todd to get the boot either, judging from their highly emotional reaction to his 38% ouster. Given that Gordon got the majority of housemate votes this week, that isn't all that surprising. In fact, Todd's low score (just four votes) meant that he had relatively little reaction to the nomination process.

The deliberate showing of the votes throughout the evening added to the tension, especially for those viewers like me who really wanted to see Sara-Marie go. I suspect, though, that she's kind of bulletproof for a little while, unless she really screws up another one of the challenes. We can live in hope!

Random observations:

Monday May 21: Curse my video recorder! I stuffed up setting the timer and, as a result, missed the episode (I was out to dinner at the time). At least it was Monday, which is generally a slow episode because it's mostly pre-nomination buildup and we already know about that, but I shall have to be more careful in future.

Tuesday May 22: Todd's prediction that Lisa could well be the next nominee for eviction turns out to come true, as she pulled in seven points, one behind Gordon with eight. Peter just pulled ahead of the others with three. From that batch, I think I'd have to vote for Gordon, but there's no telling how the public will react to Lisa, who hasn't been up for eviction before.

Notably, both Blair and Johnnie also scored their first nomination points; up until this week, the boys both had a spotless record. In household terms, Gordon is by far the least popular, with a whopping 27 points, followed by Sara-Marie with 15 and, oddly, Christina with 11. Her reactions to the threat of Peter leaving could also be interesting . . .

Random observations:

Wednesday May 23: Live broadcasts from the house make the next day's episode of Big Brother very weird, since they're mostly concerned with stuff that happened before stuff we've already seen. This episode tried to get around that problem by showing the post-nomination reactions first, then jumping backwards to earlier in the day. Not very useful.

In any case, there wasn't much to reveal, apart from the fact that voting so far is split 21-39-40. I'd guess that the 21 is Peter, but what would I know? It certainly wouldn't be Gordon, who seems to get more arrogant by the minute.

Lisa is the unknown quantity, but she managed to show a bitchier side last night when she commented about people who nominated her: "If they had the audacity to hug me as soon as they voted for me, that is one thing that would make my blood boil." This was fairly obviously directed at Christina, who had said "Welcome to the nominees' club" just moments earlier.

Random observations:

Thursday May 24: With the vote still poised around 19-40-41, Gordon is clearly putting himself in front in the "total prick" stakes, continually bagging Lisa out. Mind you, Sara-Marie's late participation in this week's task reinforces, yet again, that whatever her entertainment value for viewers, she's certainly not a team player.

Ben also continued to reinforce his "nice guy" status, asking for Sara-Marie to be excused because of her back problems, although he was quick to turn when it emerged there was no problem ("If that's the case, get to fucking work!"). The recording of the video for 'The Best Song Ever' (which needs a better title) also demonstrated that the housemates have absolutely no shame. But I guess we already knew that.

I've complained in the past about the choice of guest experts on Uncut, but Cindy Pan was a definite improvement, since she seemed willing to bag everybody out. That aside, the entire episode was dominated by Sara-Marie's continuous references to doodles, although the suggestion that Peter is flirting with Johnnie to reinforce his status in the house echoes all those earlier comments about men's fashion.

Random observations:

Friday May 25: Ebony has arrived! As a dog lover of long-standing, this is definitely a good move in my opinion. It also served to expose the nastier side of one or two of the housemates. It was no great revelation that Gordon was going to whine about it, and suggest the dog should be set a task. However, I'd have thought Peter would have put up a better show of enthusiasm; after all, he's already in trouble over the chickens.

It seemed pretty clear from the footage earlier in the week that the group were going to fail the task, if only on recognition grounds, but no-one seemed too downhearted. Interestingly, Lisa has suggested visiting the house psychologist, which would only make her the second to do so (after Sharna). Random observations:

Saturday May 26: The single funniest moment so far on the show came with the shot of Ebony deciding that Sara-Marie had slept for quite long enough, and licking her on the face. Dogs will do that.

Dog aside, not much was going on in the house, but the interim footage was actually quite revealing. It was especially odd how Todd, who earlier in the week seemed set to be ignored compared to Sharna and Andy, ended up playing the role of reporter, vox popping as if his life depended on it.

Random observations:

Sunday May 27: So far, I've made it my rule only to vote once in each week's Big Brother poll. However, last night, my resolve cracked after discovering how close the vote was and seeing Lisa's impressive bag-out of Gordon. But here's a hint: don't try making calls during the Sunday broadcast. I raced to my phone every ad break and continually got the engaged signal; I only just made it in before 8:00pm. Given how close it remained, though, I'm glad I did.

Considering how vocal he was in the house, Gordon made for a surprisingly boring interview subject, apart from when Gretel revealed that the cameras had caught him masturbating. The real interest came from Gretel's mysery announcement at the end of the show that "this week, everything changes". Could this be related to the weekend news reports that two new house members were set to be introduced, possibly to replace Jemma who has come dangerously close at times to revealing her voting intentions? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Random observations:

Monday May 28: The producers are obviously learning a thing or two. Monday's show didn't spend too much time on the pre-eviction frenzy, zooming in instead on the reactions once Gordon got the boot. The various conspiracy theories about why people are being evicted (everyone from Bedroom 2, a diagonal line of masks on the wall) were interesting, if unlikely. Sara-Marie seemed to be skating dangerously close to revealing who she had nominated in her discussion with Christina.

The plan to remove Ebony from the house, which has now gone through, was a bit disturbing. While it's good that the group is concerned that she might be missing her family, that's probably something they should have thought about more carefully before agreeing to have her. Plus, she was the cutest member of the house.

Random observations:

Tuesday May 29: The reasons given for this week's nominations were generally pretty dull: lots of people obviously had no idea even when they went in the room, and those who had decided basically regurgitated what they'd said before. The most amusing reason was Christina's nominating Jemma, because she'd asked to have her hair braided just before the obstacle course.

What was interesting was the outcome; a really close vote. Having added up the scores during the ad break, I wondered how they'd deal with a three-way tie for second place. However, looking at the numbers, there was no obvious way to break the deadlock, and so we have four nominees. I'd guess that Lisa's the most likely to go, but with a four-way split it will probably be tight. I suspect I'll be voting for Sara-Marie once again, especially if (as tonight's episode suggested) she's still not committed to trying during the weekly challenge.

Random observations:

Wednesday May 30: As usual, something big happens on Big Brother and I don't get to watch it until the next morning owing to prior commitments! Next year, maybe I'll just block out the entire three months . . .

I had thought Christina was OK with nomination immediately after yesterday's events, but she managed the usual insecure frenzy within minutes. I liked her comment: "I'm one of those dumb girls on reality TV shows who cries . . . I hate those girls!"

The distracting news that two new housemates were arriving soon moved people's minds elsewhere. All this is definitely showing a nastier side to Blair, who was unhappy with being nominated and even less happy with the new arrivals.

Not much chance to judge Rachel or Anita yet. Anita obviously has a bossier streak which might not endear her to the housemates initially; in fact at moments she reminded me of Andy. Ben's comment to Blair on their potential availability -- "Johnny's gay, Pete's taken" -- indicates that he hasn't really remembered that one of them will be gone in two days.

While there's been lots of discussion of how the newcomers feel and how weird it is for the "old hands", no-one has made the really obvious point: how pissed off would you be if you were one of the already evicted housemates? Somehow, though, I doubt the surviving newcomer will last beyond their eviction immunity week.

Random observations:

Thursday May 31: Having read about how Lisa had burst into tears and said she'd be happy to leave on Sunday, I was expecting to see all this footage broadcast. While we got the tears, the remark itself wasn't present in the broadcast -- surely something we deserved to see?

Nor was there any mention of the ongoing weekly challenge (which has been completed successfully). It seems that Anita and Rachel will be the dominant elements for the rest of the week.

Uncut took on a masturbation theme, with Gordon in place for commentary. However, despite Gordon's admission on Sunday that he'd masturbated in the house four times (well ahead of Ben and Blair then!), Gretel never quizzed him about it, treating him more as a representative male/straight man for her jokes. Best line of the night was (perhaps inevitably) for Sara-Marie: "I understand when I'm a root and when I'm a girlfriend and that's OK".

Typically, on the biggest BB weekend for some time, I'm not going to be near a TV until Sunday night! Lots of video to catch up on . . .

Random observations:

Random observations:

Friday June 1: My big challenge this week was to work out who to vote for. While Sara-Marie was the obvious target at the beginning of the week, I had to give her kudos for convincing Christina to kick Peter out of her bed. I also had to give Christina kudos for attempting to do so, so she was out. Lisa is the obvious target, but her explosion during the Jemma/Blair debate suggests that if she happens to survive the voting (very unlikely!) there could be more material. So I'm going to vote for Blair, even though there's absolutely no chance he'll get the boot.

The Jemma/Blair footage was interesting, although the TV show didn't explain that the whole confessional mood was due to a bonus supply of alcohol! It's hard to take Blair's arguments about normal behaviour when changing households seriously, considering he's never lived anywhere but home.

And the eviction? I could never decide who was going to lose out here; the only obvious development was that Rachel would not get voted out by Ben or Blair. Couldn't believe it when they read out who voted for who though!

Random observations:

Saturday June 2: Peter just gets more immature by the day. After yesterday's citing of Cleo as an expert source of relationship advice, he reacted to Christina's 'no bed' rule by taking a vow of silence. As Ben commented: "What a knob!" The experience obviously did her some good though.

Rachel's debrief interview was good enough (ditch the psychologist!), although the most interesting revelation was that she would have left the house if she hadn't been voted out. The other high point was Gordon announcing that his girlfriend had said he wasn't allowed to see Andy again . . .

Random observations:

Sunday June 3: The universal consensus seems to be that Lisa was a "boring" person, but she made for a much better eviction interviewee that Gordon. Admittedly, she nearly tripped over the on-stage streamers, but apart from that she remained composed. She also stuck up for Johnnie, despite the endless streams of abuse flowing from the audience every time his name was mentioned.

As usual, Jemma handled the evictions badly, but this seems more understandable with Lisa than with Gordon. One thought: as the number of votes required to score a nomination drops, the tension of showing them also drops. Maybe they should use some footage from previous weeks as well?

Random observations:

Monday June 4: Although Monday's post-eviction episode is usually fairly quiet, there was quite a sense of structure to this week's offering, with almost the entire evening devoted to people's response to Lisa leaving. Now that it's been revealed that the housemates can hear the cheering crowds from within the house, will Gretel stop calling for the audience to be quiet when she connects during evacuations?

When Christina jumped back into bed with Peter, it looked like all the weekend's good work had been undone. But then she jumped back out again. Doubtless this will cause Peter to reflect on Sara-Marie's threat: "If you break her heart, I'll break your balls."

Random observations:

Tuesday June 5: While I suspected that Peter would get nominated, I really wasn't sure who else would make the cut. Given the current field of Christina, Peter and Sara-Marie, I actually suspect that Peter might get the chop. The two girls were neck and neck in last week's race, after all, and Peter is now universally perceived to be a bit of a prick.

What's really notable now is that you only effectively have to piss off two people in order to score a nomination. Once the current crop of nominees is culled, it's going to be almost impossible to pick who might suffer, unless someone does something criminally stupid.

The only other prediction I'd be prepared to make is that Anita will probably get the boot as soon as she's nominated. No-one wants to see that much sobbing, especially in the diary room.

Random observations:

Wednesday June 6: As a longtime site watcher, I'm used to lots of stuff that gets mentioned online not making the edited version. However, I must admit to being a bit disappointed with the amount of material from the 'pretend you're another housemate' sequence that made it to air, especially as the site itself displayed the following message:

Make sure you're watching Big Brother tonight at 7pm to see the diary room action as each housemate talks about the nomination process, how they're feeling, how they relate to the others and more -- all as if they were another housemate!

So why did we just get a brief sequence of Blair (as Sara-Marie) talking to the chickens, Johnnie and Ben doing a Peter-and-Christina routine, and only Blair from the diary room? I could understand it if there was other, more compelling footage, but that discussion between Jemma and Johnnie wasn't exactly riveting stuff.

Random observations:

Thursday June 7: Tonight was the night that Peter revealed he suffers from Crohne's disease, which might go some way to explaining his stupidly moody behaviour. I doubt it will serve as an excuse for his truly bizarre approach to laundry: putting all his clothes on and then peeling them off under the shower. If this is what he gets up in the shower, I don't see how he can criticise Jemma.

Apart from the unexpected move of Roger the Rooster out of the house, there wasn't too much plot advancement in tonight's episode. Uncut took a different approach, stretching out the "greyhound race" footage over the entire episode. This wasn't a bad angle; certainly it made a change from the endless psychologists! I do wonder whether Uncut will survive until the final week of the show, though; as the numbers in the house drop, the available footage is going to dry up. Random observations:

Friday June 8: As a quick glance backward through this diary will confirm, I always thought that the idea of punishing Peter for the "chook kicking incident" was stupid. I'm thus somewhat surprised that poultry have become so central to recent episodes. Not only has Roger been evacuated, but tonight we had a dead chook, which led to a level of household panic not seen in some time.

I'm really struggling to understand just why this was deemed so important that Big Brother (sporting a female voice) felt compelled to advise the housemates not to touch the dead chook "under any circumstances". Do poultry really carry that many dangerous diseases?

Random observations:

Saturday June 9: It's interesting to notice how much my attitude towards some of the housemates has changed over the past few weeks. When I first started trying to pick who should get voted off, Sara-Marie came quickly into view, largely because of her ongoing refusal to acknowledge any sort of culpability in the fire challenge. Jemma's superficial attitude also had me bugged.

A few weeks later, I can't seem to muster up the same level of venom towards these two. I guess this is a consequence of shrinking numbers. With fewer people in the house, everyone gets more on-screen time, and thus has more chance of appearing like a decent human being. Exception: Anita, who seems more aggressive the more we see of her. Random observations:

Sunday June 10: "Next!" Given that Peter was the most likely evacuee, the question we've all been asking is: will he acknowledge his relationship with Christina, or turn it into a big joke? On the basis of tonight's episode, he gets a somewhat qualified pass. He said they planned to see each other again, but he didn't single her out for any special kind of farewell. Predictably, she was sobbing from the minute the door slammed shut. And as Peter himself commented: "I'm a liar. Haven't you worked that out?"

One other notable thing about the eviction shows is that the producers seem to have a much better handle on how to make them interesting. The video editing is getting more skilful every week, and the decision to show Peter footage other than just the nominations -- such as Christina's pre-prepared goodbye -- worked well. (He did seem quite surprised by being nominated by Ben, though.) His comment that making nominations was some kind of Sophie's Choice-style dilemma shows just how removed from reality "reality" TV actually is.

Random observations:

Monday June 11: As an in-tears Christina commented: "I'm just working on my Gwyneth Paltrow impersonation". This seems a bit unrealistic, as Gwyneth seems to be a right bitch, and Christina doesn't. Johnnie, on the other hand, is a different story.

I can't help thinking Johnnie's sobbing over Peter, while genuine enough in some ways, had a strategic intent. After all, he was very much back to his backstabbing ways, telling Sara-Marie he was glad she was there, even though he nominated her last week! Ben's observations -- that it was strange for Peter (who he'd nominated) to go, but there was no sense in regretting it -- seemed more reasonable.

Random observations:

Tuesday June 12: Yes, Anita has been nominated! I've been hoping for this some time, but any lingering doubts were confirmed when Anita went into a full-scale whinge about the vegetables, to whit: "Can we please not use that frozen shit anymore?" Contestants on reality TV shows probably shouldn't expect gourmet food, and should be grateful, as Christina noted, that the frozen vegetables are free.

Anita certainly hit the tally in style, racking up 7 points, well ahead of Christina and Jemma, who scored 3 each. In fact, Anita has scored as many nomination points in one week as Johnnie has scored during the entire run of the show (and she's not far behind the career totals of Blair and Ben either). I suspect this will be her last week, although there's no telling if a Jemma backlash has been waiting to emerge. Somehow, though, I doubt that lip gloss will be able to compete with outright narkiness.

Random observations:

Wednesday June 13: Well, they didn't waste any time showing the Jemma topless footage, did they? Of course, in the 7:00pm timeslot, they had to blur everything, but I guess they felt it needed to be shown as soon as possible. Doubtless the full version will show up Thursday, along with the much-promoted 'gimp mask' footage.

While there was a certain amount of editing designed to make Jemma look like a loner -- obviously they want to stop the Anita exit being a complete walkover -- the high point was the false 'beauty salon' discussion between Sara-Marie and Ben. However, while the site has been making much of Christina's new personality post-Peter, we didn't get to see much evidence of it. Maybe, like Ben's humour, it just doesn't edit down well. Random observations:

Thursday June 14: Well, if Anita had any supporters left outside her immediate family, presumably they've all given up by now. I could accept that she might want a momentary whinge about not contributing, but the way she went on and on about it . . . Even Ben, normally the most diplomatic of housemates, looked gobsmacked at her explosion. Just as well she's gone around telling everyone that she's praying for God to get her out on Sunday, as she looks like the surest thing since Sharna.

Even Uncut gave us more classic Anita: dogmatic in her own opinions but unwilling to acknowledge it. She told Sara-Marie that she'd never heard any guy make a comparison between 'innies' and 'outies' in the vaginal sense -- clearly implying that Sara-Marie was sinking to new lows even thinking about it -- but then proclaimed at length about how she'd never get with an uncircumcised guy. I can't imagine the stint on the show will have won her too many admirers anyway.

Otherwise, Uncut continued the good work of Sunday's show by embarrassing Peter with even more footage of his less salubrious moments. He responded well, again, although it seemed like a lack of sleep might have dulled his responses.

Random observations:

Friday June 15: Sara-Marie is obviously growing on me. When the show began, I was eager to jump on any example of her failing the task. Now that she has been solely responsible for failing a task, I feel kind of ambivalent. Maybe that's because in this case -- where the accusation is that she didn't spend enough time working on the movie -- I don't have any real means of judging her. A certain fatalism seemed obvious in the house as well, with Ben commenting: "We're due to fail one".

While we're still waiting to actually see Man Down, Ben's pseudo-interviews proved very funny. A particular highlight was his asking Anita if she had to act in order to portray a neurotic woman. She obviously missed the joke.

Random observations:

Saturday June 16: Saturday shows are often highly variable, but this one wasn't bad. Katie Underwood from Bardot was a legitimate guest -- she's been through the whole reality TV mill -- even if it did turn into an extended Hair promo. The footage of Christina's comedy act was also interesting, if a bit hard to reconcile with the girl we've seen on screen.

The highlight, of course, was getting to see the completed version of Man Down. Given the resources at the group's disposal, it wasn't a bad effort. The biggest problem was the variable range of acting. The best performers were probably Christina and (I hate to say it) Anita, although the latter did have a tendency to grin a little too soon after delivering her lines. Blair also wasn't bad as 'The Chad', but was he really acting?

Random observations:

Sunday June 17: "I wanna go home, I'm ready to go!" Just as well, then. I always thought that Anita would get the boot, but I must admit that I didn't think she's top Sharna's record for least-popular housemate, if only because Jemma was a wildcard. Not much of one, it turns out; with 79% of the vote, Anita got the boot. Whether this is because everyone hates her or because she repeatedly said "I want to leave" is open to conjecture, but I'll back the former. Certainly the housemates, who immediately had a group hug, didn't seem too distressed to see her go.

Anita wasn't a bad interview subject, but then she had much more idea of what she was in for than any of the other people who'd been there before. Her fondness for Sara-Marie was obvious Oddly, she went with the flow and nominated Ben as the funniest guy in the house, even after complaining about it all week.

Random observations:

Monday June 18: Knowing that there's an eviction video to look forward to makes Mondays much more entertaining. And Anita didn't disappoint, lashing out at most of the boys and Blair in particular. As Johnnie (!) pointed out, Anita wasn't willing to make such remarks to anyone's face, despite her obsession with "honesty". Blair was more direct: "If I could put a hole in someone's head, it'd be hers."

That aside, the highlight was the ongoing shenanigans surrounding talking about nominations. As usual, Jemma was in the thick of it (will the girl never learn?) I'm personally going to find it very hard to vote for someone this week, unless Johnnie gets nominated or someone does something really stupid. Random observations:

Tuesday June 19: "The group's cherry's broken now." That comment from Ben pretty much summed up the logic (or lack of it) behind this week's nominations, with Johnnie and Ben basically scoring votes simply because they hadn't been nominated before. The only exception was Ben's nomination of Johnnie for one point because he can be "a bit too diplomatic". With Christina also unsure of Johnnie's motives, his ability to backstab is obviously going to be reduced.

Unless there's some hidden well of resentment against Ben, I imagine this week will be a battle between Johnnie and Sara-Marie. Having said yesterday I wouldn't have anyone to vote for unless Johnnie got nominated, I suppose I should be grateful.

The house's willingness to forego luxury items for Jemma's sake showed just how much of a group the remaining six have become. She ultimately still lost the ability to nominate, but escaped being up for eviction this week, although not by much.

Actually, if Ben had inverted his vote, giving Johnnie 2 points and Sara-Marie 1, everyone in the house would have been nominated. The odds are quite good that we'll get four nominations next week, even if only five people are left. Clearly, though, Ten wouldn't want Jemma walking out at this stage; it would ruin the current task for starters.

Random observations:

Wednesday June 20: Babies, babies and more babies! At least there was the painting sequence for some light relief (naturally, Jemma got very upset when she had paint in her hair). We also got one of the relatively rare references to earlier housemates, with Todd rated as a potentially good parent and Gordon as a bit of a joke.

The episode also saw one of the few overt references to the availability of the psychologist to consult with distressed housemates. While Sharna, Lisa and Christina have all made use of that service, you wouldn't know it unless you hung around the Web site a lot.

Random observations:

Thursday June 21: On some matters, the housemates are quite in tune with the outside world. Four days after her eviction, everyone's still complaining about Anita -- the comment this time was "She never took the time to get to know any of us" -- and so are we. On the other hand, Jemma assured Johnnie that the public are "all going to love you as much as we do". Err, wrong.

Uncut once again made use of a long sequence to tie the episode together, but the snogging under the doona bit didn't have the same drama as the greyhound race footage. Indeed, the extended sequence at the beginning of the show, designed to show how the housemates are highly aware of the cameras at times, featured loads of footage we've seen before, suggesting that filling out the Uncut episodes may be getting harder (pardon the pun) as the numbers shrink.

On the plus side, Dr Cindy Pan remains the best psychologist they've had on there, and we had the usual selection of appalling quotes, as well as the appearance of the term 'freeballing' which I've not heard before. There was also some interesting footage of Sharna, Andy, Peter, Gordon and Todd at some kind of fashion shoot; I imagine we might see more of this come Saturday's show.

Random observations:

Friday June 22: Thank god those bloody babies are gone! It's no surprise that the housemates couldn't pass the task; I'd have gone nuts very early in the piece. And there was no option of blaming just one person, with only Christina and Johnnie passing all the required elements (that 2 metre rule did everyone else in pretty fast!

As I have access to a broadband connection at the moment, I've been watching far more of the live feed than I normally would. It's much better quality than the modem feeds, but unless you pick the right time of day, still not highly informative. Half an hour of Ben kneading bread simply isn't that compelling.

I was glad that the footage of the 'party game' where each person pretended to be someone and the host had to guess stayed in -- and even gladder that Sara-Marie's Sharna impersonation made the final cut. Looks like Sharna's rep is set in stone, as far as the house is concerned.

Random observations:

Saturday June 23: Who would have thought that Todd would become the standout media performer out of the first crop of Big Brother evictees? While Andy promotes sex in a variety of venues, Todd has quietly established himself as a backup regular reporter for the Saturday edition, and he's doing a fairly reasonable job.

Perhaps the most revealing piece of footage from today's show was when Blair chucked a wobbly when he lost the chess game with Ben. While Blair's still the ranked favourite to win, his youthfulness/immaturity (delete as you prefer) is becoming more apparent as the group shrinks.

Random observations:

Sunday June 24: "It's all good." It's commonly thought that all the contestants on Big Brother are attention-seeking egomaniacs, but Johnnie's performance on the stage was something else again. Even Andy was not this outgoing when she made her exit. While the housemates collapsed into unrelenting sobbing, Johnnie seemed immediately recharged by the huge audience, to the point where it actually became obnoxious. It was no great surprise that Johnnie got the boot, although I hadn't thought that he'd go as high as 70%. Sara-Marie also seems to be getting lower scores every time.

The other interesting development during the live crosses to the house is that Jemma actually appears to be developing more self-confidence, and a sense of humour. We also got to see how the delayed-telecast bleeping works in action, with huge swathes of dialogue cut out by nervous Channel Ten censors.

Random observations:

Monday June 25: If tonight is any indication of what the response to the next two evictions is like, then Mondays are going to be pretty bleak. This would have to be the most sombre episode to date. Indeed, if it wasn't for the brief bit of footage of Blair, Sara-Marie and Christina in the bedroom at the end, it would have been pretty much wall-to-wall sobbing. And all of this was basically from four hours in the house -- one of the most compressed timeframes ever.

Tonight also probably stands out as the episode with the most diary room footage; everyone still in the house except for Christina popped in to make some comments and/or have a good cry. Nomination will probably keep them all depressed for days on end. You'd have to suspect that there'll be an all-female lineup this week, and that Jemma will be the next one to go.

Random observations:

Tuesday June 26: In the last couple of weeks, nominations were always going to be a lottery, but who would have guessed Sara-Marie would have got off so lightly, with only her customary one point from Ben? Faced with the choice of Christina, Jemma and Blair, I suspect I'll be casting my vote for Blair. On the whole, though, it seems likely that Jemma will go, although I wouldn't expect by the same margin as recent evictees Johnnie and Anita.

One advantage of having just five people in the house is that everyone gets reasonable screen exposure. This week's task does seem to give an advantage to Christina, who, after all, knows more about choreography than all the others put together. This could of course backfire -- look what being in charge did for the Johnnie/Anita relationship -- but given Christina's general lack of bossiness, it's unlikely.

Random observations:

Wednesday June 27: Having been promoted extensively on the site since yesterday, I'd been hanging out to actually see the footage of the BB Christmas-almost-in-July. It generally made for good viewing, although the footage of Christina sobbing probably got dragged out a bit, considering that she'd pretty much recovered by the end of the day. Why not a little more synchronised swimming footage, or a few games of table tennis (Blair's gift)?

While most of the sponsors have had a good run, Sony definitely seems to be getting the most in-house exposure. Plasma screens, a PS2 and now an Aibo . . .

Random observations:

Thursday June 28: It was always inevitable that Uncut was going to run short of material as the number of people in the house shrunk, so tonight's 'best of' episode (and next week's promise of nude hijinks from other BB shows) was no great surprise. For completists like me who've been taping Uncut anyway, it also wasn't much of a revelation in the nudity stakes.

What was revealing was how annoying the now-evicted housemates still seem. Every time Andy or Gordon appeared, I was reminded of how their brashness tended to overpower other people in the house -- a comment that also applies, albeit to a lesser degree, to Sharna and Peter. So far, it's been easy to pick who should go, but unless Blair gets the boot this week (unlikely) I'm not going to be too happy to see anyone else leave.

Tonight's main episode was inconsequential, though the dancing footage was pretty amusing. I also liked Sara-Marie's self-aware comment during the breadmaking aerobics after she swore: "There's no need for language like that on morning television either."

Random observations:

Friday June 29: It's very strange. Big Brother goes to great trouble to set up scenarios that should provide entertaining viewing -- music videos, dance marathons, film-making, synchronised swimming -- and then only shows a fraction of the resulting footage. How short do the programmers think our attention spans are?

That said, Christina's decision to reveal her much-rumoured "family secret" -- namely, that she has a brother she's never met -- did deserve a fair amount of airplay. Refreshingly, she didn't burst into tears about it (but then again, you don't; I've never met my half-brother, and it strikes me as more odd than upsetting).

Random observations:

Saturday June 30: A full reunion of all the remaining housemates was long overdue, especially as it gave Gretel the chance to interact with them all face-to-face as a group. (Indeed, Gretel was in fiesty form, challenging Johnnie for actual evidence that he'd been portrayed as the villain because he was gay. Such evidence is, perhaps, a little think on the ground.)

Only Anita and Gordon seem to have accepted that the odds of their becoming famous are actually pretty low (although that hasn't stopped Gordon preparing a pilot with Todd). Andy is clearly having trouble accepting that she's become famous not because of her personality, but because she's a slut.

Random observations:

Sunday July 1: "It's time to go, Jemma." Jemma had imagined this sentence earlier in the week, and it turned out she was right. No tears from the housemates this time, and Jemma herself seemed alternately shocked and elated. The comments from her parents about how having her on the show meant they saw her more often was a useful reminder that not everyone over the age of 20 is still living with their folks.

Elsewhere in the parental field, Christina's mother's comment that she wanted to "knock some sense" into her initially seemed a little harsh, but on reflection, this is probably where Christina got her own habit of self-deprecation from. Christina has now tied with Sara-Marie's record of five nominations without an eviction; I can't help suspecting that both will be nominated this week, and one of them will lose the record. This week, the task of picking nominees should actually be easier than previous weeks, since basically the housemates just have to decide who they don't want to nominate, and then dump the other two in it.

Random observations:

Monday July 2: Big Brother obviously really, really wants there to be a romance in the house, and the fact that no-one has actually had one since Peter left the building isn't going to be a barrier. Thus we have endless footage of Sara-Marie and Blair discussing their "luurve", even though it's criminally obvious even from these edited segments that there's nothing going on. Spare us, please.

Other than that, it was typical post-eviction mode, with the farewell video (nice, though heavily cut down for transmission), and a recurring sense of wonder at how unoccupied the house has become. As Ben put it: "This is wrong. Where's everyone else?"

Random observations:

Tuesday July 3: Up front, I'll admit that I was disappointed that Blair managed to escape nomination in the final week. Had either of the girls swapped their nomination points, all four of the housemates would have been up for eviction. It was interesting to see how Blair in fact had a stronger reaction to not being nominated, which is reasonable enough; in effect, he's the outsider now.

Voting was totally on gender lines, with the two boys nominating the two girls and vice versa. With all voting now complete, it's interesting to note that Sara-Marie (with 34 points over the life over the show) was only marginally less popular than Christina (32 points). Earlier in the show, the Bunny Girl had enjoyed a larger lead. Ben has 22 points, and Blair has 14.

Random observations:

Wednesday July 4: After learning from the BB site this morning that a celebrity "intruder" would take part in the challenge, I speculated to my friend D.Lo on IRC that it would probably be Gretel. And indeed it was. While the advertising for the show had implied fairly heavily that just one housemate would get the $100,000, I was quite pleased to see they got to split it. The atmosphere could have got quite nasty otherwise.

The broadcast was much more low-tech than previous live crosses, and all the more interesting for it. I'm sure I wasn't the only person in Australia who was surprised that Sara-Marie didn't fall in the pool! In general, though, the group did a good job of working as a team, even on horrible tasks like the alphabet collection run. None of this is making picking someone to vote for this week any easier. I want Ben to win (though he won't). Sara-Marie is the most likely to beat Blair (who I'd vote for if I could), so I can't dump her. And Christina has improved so much since Pete left, I'd hate to see her leave now. Decisions, decisions . . .

The regular show was notable mainly for its own piece of deceptive advertising of Christina's "shock" revelation. After running promos that more or less implied she'd been a prostitute, the truth -- that she'd posed for a Ralph pictorial -- was an anticlimax, especially as the magazine republished them as soon as it realised. Wonder what she'll make of that?

Random observations:

Thursday July 5: On the surface, an international version of Uncut should make for particularly good viewing. If you leave aside prudes like the Yanks, most of the other versions have involved people even more outgoing than the Oz lot, meaning there should be acres of bare flesh on display and amusement aplenty.

In fact, though, it was very hard to get involved with the final Uncut for a simple reason: we don't know the people. It's probably only obvious in retrospect, but it's only interesting watching people talk about sex when you can relate it back to their overall character. I guess this is what made Andy so dull; you didn't care what she thought. (Looking back, that's a big shift in attitude from when I started watching!) Although the bit with the guy who got stroppy when his mother was called a whore was interesting . . .

Tonight's main episode actually managed to show virtually all the Big Brother News segment that had been filmed, and then switched tone rapidly when the housemates went into post-Gretel shock. This is one of the few times we've actually seen Sara-Marie shocked into silence!

Random observations:

Friday July 6: As we near the finish line for the show, the number of shock revelations is dropping. While in the first weeks I was often taking down several pages of comments while watching, this has dropped considerably. Unless Sara-Marie reveals that she's really a man, there's probably not too many shocks left.

My notes from Friday's show mostly focus on Blair, whose capacity for self-improvement seems to have defined limits. Despite Sara-Marie's well-reasoned arguments, he didn't seem willing to acknowledge that his "instant judgements" on people could be faulty. But as I keep reminding myself, he is only 20.

Random observations:

Saturday July 7: Jemma has definitely shown herself to be one of the more articulate interviewees this week, and that trend continued in tonight's interviews and filmed segments. Getting Wayne Cooper on was a bit of a waste of space, though.

Talking to the people responsible for the licensing deals for the housemates was also long overdue. Of course, it revealed what we suspected all along: that transforming this kind of fame into any other kind of fame will be difficult. It's not difficult to imagine Andy being a sex columnist, but other opportunities seem a little thin on the ground.

One other slightly worrying trend has been evidence of partiality on Gretel's part when announcing possible evictees. While it seems more likely with each passing day that Sara-Marie will win, I think prefacing her phone number with "Can you budge her from that house? Mmm-mm!" was taking things a bit far.

Random observations:

Sunday July 8: In the end, I couldn't bring myself to vote for anyone this week; it just didn't seem right. And to judge from the final scores (which stayed pretty consistent all week, even after the phone line bungle), it wouldn't have made much difference. What was notable was that Sara-Marie came not second, as I'd expected, but third (albeit by a narrow margin). Can nothing stop this girl?

I had thought they might have bought Peter up for the eviction support role, but I guess they want to save that for next Saturday's show. In any event, Christina proved a good subject on the couch, willing to answer most questions and with a seemingly clear sense of her time in the house.

Having been impartial last week, this time around I'm going to be voting early and often. For the moment, my aim is to get Blair evicted Sunday. If that doesn't happen and, as I anticipate, Ben gets the boot, it'll be go Sara-Marie all the way come next Monday.

Random observations:

Monday July 9: Theoretically, with only three housemates to share the air time, we should be getting roughly equal shares of each. In practice, of course, we're getting 22 minutes of Sara-Marie. While this gives her a chance to show her compassionate and fun sides -- crying over Christina's message, making a fairly good fist of being Mr Squiggle -- it also gives her annoying aspects full reign. Her totally unreasonable decision to eat a midnight snack in the bedroom while the boys tried to sleep reminded me of the reasons why I'd found her so annoying early in the series.

Christina had a particularly well-executed farewell message, even allowing for the fact that (a) she'd had plenty of practice at recording it and (b) it was the first message to be shown more or less in full on the broadcast. Blair didn't seem to have any visible response to her observation that they hadn't been such good friends later in the life of the house.

Random observations:

Tuesday July 10: It's the time of the season for minute details. I seriously doubt that we'd have gotten detailed discussion from Sara-Marie about her spewing habits earlier in the series!

Probably the most revealing moment in the show was when Big Brother announced how the final evictions would work. Ben seemed more or less neutral, but Sara-Marie and Blair were clearly not pleased. Indeed, Blair seems unwilling to even think about leaving the house, blocking all discussion of what will happen when they leave.

Of course, the highlight of the episode was when Ben began sleep-talking about chickens. Knowing Sara-Marie, we'll be hearing about this for days afterwards.

Random observations:

Wednesday July 11: In its final week, Big Brother seems to be reverting to the model that first bought it fame: lots of shower shots and nudity. As well as Ben in the bathroom, we've had Sara-Marie's nude plunge into the pool (tastefully blurred, of course). It hardly seems necessary; everyone's going to be watching this week!

Sara-Marie's video diary comments in the garden were quite touching and well thought out, which was a surprise given that her frequent diary room visits generally end in hysteria. Then again, under those circumstances she does tend to be goaded on by Big Brother.

Random observations:

Thursday July 12: There's something bizarrely reflexive about the fact that people in a house where they're being filmed all the time are now going around filming each other all the time. From the viewer's point of view, this does give us angles that probably wouldn't be possible otherwise, but there doesn't seem to be a real difference in anyone's personality whether they're being filmed being filmed, or just being filmed.

We may get another chance to assess this Friday, with an extra half hour being dedicated to the relationship between the three existing housemates. I hope this isn't all we get; my opinion of all three of them has as much to do with how they related to the other nine!

The other outstanding thing about tonight was that when Blair had his outdoor bath he left his underwear on. Given how much shit he heaped on Jemma about her doing something similar in the shower . . . I was speechless. Almost.

Random observations:

Friday July 13: Tonight, a really simple moment served as a reminder of just what an abnormal existence life in the Big Brother house is. When music begin to be piped into the house after dinner, everyone looked stunned, not sure if it was pre-empting some kind of new challenge.

Then, of course, the moment was completely ruined when the housemates identified 'Hold Me Now' by the Thompson Twins as being by Rick Astley! And when Ben described it (correctly) as "the sort of music they played on the Wedding Singer", I was reminded that everyone in this house is a decade or so younger than me.

The extra half hour took an interesting non-partisan tack, taking the 'vote for this person because you like this other person' schtick to its logical extreme. With the percentages running at 40-35-25, it's almost impossible to guess who's where (although my guess would be Ben-Blair-Sara-Marie).

Random observations:

Saturday July 14: If there was a dominant theme to tonight's show, it was not-so-subtle promotion for The Secret Life Of Us. Not only did they get a cast member on, but the housemates got a preview of the show, on the pretext that they need to be readapted to normal life. I don't get the impression many of the other recent evictees have spent much time watching television!

In-house activity was at its usual low level, with the main boost coming from the fake job interviews. Ben in particular seemed unable to take this seriously. I guess we'll have to forgive Sara-Marie for her comment "I hate anything to do with computers". Random observations:

Sunday July 15: "It's only tomorrow, it's alright!" If there was one person I thought was safe in the house, it was Sara-Marie. I wanted Blair out, while suspecting Ben would get the boot, but I never thought Sara-Marie would appear, even in a cliffhanger. Once she came out, she was indeed exactly as she had been in the house; loud, rambunctious, and giggling a lot. While she was stunned by the audience reaction, she kept stealing sly glances at her family.

Watching the video history, I was reminded once again of when the tides turned for Sara-Marie: during her advice sessions to Christina on what to do with Peter. This was the first time she appeared to have depth, and it set up her counsellor role, an important one to offset her more outrageous qualities. (Even though she wasn't nominated this week, it would have been nice to see her reactions to other people's nominations of her.)

The history also reinforced my conviction that it's Ben, not Blair, who deserves to win. There's nothing downright objectionable about Blair, but he's very cocksure, a litttle sexist, and somehow just a bit too pleased with himself. Ben, while openly admitting he's in the game for the money (which Blair clearly is too -- he's just trying to avoid talking about), has been fair, decent and funny, and barely gotten into a fight with anyone. But he hasn't been boring. I suspect I'll be ringing the Blair line (1902 555 012) a lot in the next 24 hours, before the big eviction party at my place.

Random observations:

Monday July 16: "And the winner of Big Brother is . . . Ben." Yes! Yes! Yes! Despite voting seven or so times, I was still resigned to the idea that Blair was going to win. When Ben's name got announced, the cheers in my house (where a bunch of friends dropped round to watch) were probably heard a block away.

Ben's final tally saw him score a massive 62% of the vote, which means that the Sara-Marie factor was all important. In Sunday's vote, he'd only been a fraction of a percentage behind her, and well ahead of Blair. Obviously, when allegiances transferred, they didn't hit Blair -- and given his smug, grinning performance to the crowd, we can only be grateful ("I've never sat by a pool and had so many thoughts" indeed).

It was almost cruel to leave Ben in the house, with no-one to talk to, while Blair was evicted though. He looked truly dazed, as if he'd long ago resigned himself to the notion of Blair winning. Once outside, he perked up a bit, with his family going absolutely ballistic once he appeared.

The ex-housemates featured heavily, with group interviews, highlights footage and the 'walk of fame' for Ben (though this would have been better if it started with Andy and worked up in the other direction). It was amusing seeing Gretel skip over Jemma during this segment, though she did catch up later.

Random observations:

Tuesday July 17: Well, the live links to the house on Rove, while amusing enough, were nothing to really write home about. We can only hope that when Celebrity BB kicks off in October we get better celebrities than Jeannie Little and Grant Kenny.

The interviews were more interesting though. Getting to see Gretel in non-scripted mode reminded us that she wasn't always responsible for some of the less memorable moments in the show commentary, and she was quick to take Rove to task for his questions. Rove's haste to correct his error about the Dreamworld opening date was also pretty amusing.

When Ben came on, apart from being struck at how much taller than Rove he was, the overwhelming impression was one of exhaustion (although unlike Blair, he'd kept his voice). He remained good-humoured though, and even Gretel's discussion of how he nearly got evicted didn't phase him too much.

In the group interview, it was notable how Jemma was the most willing to speak up, and that there seemed to be a certain amount of tension between Peter and Christina (reinforcing newspaper reports that she's angry with him for trying to sell the first photo of them together outside to a magazine). Anita was also extremely keen to get a word in about her time in the house, given Rove's forced exclusion of her when she was actualsly evicted.

Random observations:

Thursday July 19: While the Beauty and the Beast format gave each of the housemates a better chance to speak out than on Rove, it wasn't particularly enlightening. The process wasn't helped by either the dumb questions from the audience,many of which repeated questions that either Gretel or Rove or both had already asked, or by Stan, who seemed so obsessed with (a) what happened to Christina and Peter (as she said, "Oh get over it, would you?") and (b) trying to imply that Ben hugging Blair made the pair of them gay. Jeannie Little was no use either.

Mostly, what it did was reinforce what we already know, both in terms of people's experience in their house and their future. Jemma continued to perform confidently for the camera; Sara-Marie is still in shock, but helpfully bagged out Stan; Andy is still outgoing; Christina is continuing to be more confident (even if she may be back with Peter); Anita was still the same as ever. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Sharna, who demonstrated that she probably would make a good panellist on the normal version of the show. Whether this will all be reflected on Sunday's special is anyone's guess.

Random observations:

Blair still sounds like shit, and Ben wasn't much better. Clearly the partying continues . . .

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