Welcome to this, the eight thousand, three hundred and forty-forth series of the now defunct Big Brother. The show jumped the shark a long time ago but still it pounds our TV screens like a jack-hammer on coke. Its tirade will probably never end and thus I have referred to the old adage, “if you can’t beat them… write about them.”
I thought we’d have a quick run-down of the contestants, their strengths and weaknesses, et cetera, et cetera. Here goes:
Victoria is a 41-year old ex-glamour model, self-confessed cougar and dog lover. In her own words, everything about her is fake. Even her beauty spot is a tattoo.
The public loves: a big-titted matriarch.
The public hates: a maneater.
See also: Lea Walker 2006 (series 7)
Current odds: 60
Valuation: A little harsh.
Lydia is a 25-year old dancer with a feisty (read: moody) side, who also happens to be engaged to barely-famous Andy Scott-Lee.
The public loves: a tantrum
The public hates: a stuck up dancer
See also: Grace Adams-Short (series 7)
Current odds: 100
Valuation: Make it more like 1000
Shievonne, 28, is a loud-mouth hula-hooping playboy bunny from Lewisham. So far she has pulled off some great impressions and pissed off Lydia. Ten points.
The public loves: a clown / an optimist
The public hates: not knowing when to shut up
See also: Kerry Katona
Current odds: 19
Valuation: She was right to plummet after the impressions.
Deana, 23 from Birmingham, is the current Miss India UK. She was randomly selected to enter the house first and nominate three fellow housemates face to face, a task she carried out as graciously as possible.
The public loves: a sari-clad beauty who carries herself with dignity
The public hates: a snob.
See also: Shilpa Shetty
Current odds: 42
Valuation: Fair
Luke S is the 24-year old Jack-the-lad from Stoke-on-Trent who bangs on about little more than his torso, his knob and how he’s going to nail your girlfriend. Minus ten points.
The public loves: a Northern ‘lad’
The public hates: a chauvinist
See also: Anthony Hutton (series 6)
Current Odds: 34
Valuation: We live in a society that continues to demonise women and glorify cheeky chappies so perhaps he should be a little shorter.
Ashleigh, 20, is this year’s token Essex gal. She’s potty-mouthed and hyperactive and loves animals.
The public loves: a ditz
The public hates: a brat
See also: Nikki Grahame (series 7)
Current odds: 18
Valuation: She’s not received much coverage yet. Fair for now.
Scott is 21 and, believe it or not, from Macclesfield. The plum-mouthed blond claims to have taught himself to speak properly having come from a family of ruffians.
The public loves: a fool
The public hates: the upper classes
See also: Halfwit (series 10)
Current odds: 26
Valuation: Whilst his accent works against him, I think he could provide a lot of entertainment and remain in the favour of fellow housemates. Odds too long.
Sara is a 22-year old student and Miss Edinburgh 2010. She has already turned many of the boys’ heads and claims to be flirty and argumentative.
The public loves: a feisty lass
The public hates: a prick-tease.
See also: Sam Heuston (Series 6)
Current Odds: 16.5
Valuation: Try tripling that. One sideways glance at the wrong man and she’s the whore of Babylon. On the other hand she could really become ‘one of the boys’ and turn it around. She is a Scot as well. Maybe fair.
Arron, 23, is a model and mixed martial artist from Manchester who likes to keep his fringe nicely swept and practice karate in front of the mirror.
The public likes: a pretty boy, a simpleton
The public hates: arrogance
See also: Dale Howard (series 9)
Current odds: 22
Valuation: I just don’t think he has the personality to carry it. Odds too short.
Adam is the 27-year old ex-con from Burton-on-Trent via Los Angeles. So far he has lounged around trying to turn everyday sentences into rhymes.
The public loves: a character
The public hates: an American
See also: Dennis Rodman
Current odds: 16.5
Valuation: Way too short. I just don’t see it happening for a Yank.
Chris, 21, is the overly preened, short and tubby bouncer with the voice of a chipmunk. Because he has a comedy appearance, he got cheered on the way in, even though his VT focused mainly on being sleazy with women and his plans to ‘back-stab’ the other housemates.
The public loves: An unthreatening type.
The public hates: Gameplans.
See also: Brian Belo
Current odds: 16.5
Valuation: Maybe a little long. He has the cute factor, the chubby and unthreatening to the ladies thing going on, etc. We’ll have to see if he keeps it up. I certainly wouldn’t lay him for the win.
Conor is the gruff voiced, Northern-Irish grafter who has thus far remained reasonably gentlemanly.
The public loves: An Irishman, a grafter, a people’s champ.
The public hates: A sleaze.
See also: Craig Phillips
Current odds: 16
Valuation: Hmm, a little long. Conor would be my current stab in the dark for the win. Don’t take my word for it though.
Caroline is the wild-haired gap-year fanatic who likes slicing apples and making cups of tea. So far she has bonded with posh Scott to no end of highlarious tea-time banter.
The public loves: An oddball, a lovey
The public hates: Posh people
See also: Shell Jubin (series 5) Josie Gibbon (series 10)
Current odds: 9.8
Valuation: A little short. I see her making the final but placing low a la Shell Jubin.
Benedict is the smooth-talking ex-teacher and porn star who seems to be winning favour with many in the house.
The public loves: A gentleman with a dark side
The public hates: A teacher
See also: Hmm… suggestions?
Current odds: 7.4
Valuation: Definite winning potential.
Lauren is the gorgeous high kicking black-belt who drives tractors and doesn’t know how to wear make up.
The public loves: A girl who’s ‘one of the boys’
The public hates: A girl who gives the boys false hope
See also: Imogen Thomas (series 7)
Current odds: 15
Valuation: Fair.
Luke was born a girl and grew up as Laura. After having made the transition to life as a man, Luke hopes to gain acceptance from his housemates and the outside world.
The public loves: A journey towards self-acceptance
The public hates: People who only bang on about one thing and don’t have fun.
See also: Nadia Almada (series 5)
Current odds: 7.2
Valuation: A little slim. Whether the trans story is enough to propel Luke to the win is dubious. Today’s voting public are so accepting they might just get over it and want to watch something more interesting. Luke is a person, not just a trans person, and so far he’s been a little boring.
As far as I can see, Lydia feels like a dead cert for the first elimination against Victoria and Conor, neither of whom has come off particularly unfavourably so far. Lydia’s whining tantrum and talk of fame will be very off-putting. I don’t think Victoria has done enough to incur the wrath of the public and historically it’s always a woman to go first.
Your thoughts, kind people?
Thanks for this. Only saw the first 15 minutes of the launch night show (up to Caroline, who brings out certain feelings* in me of the type that others seemed to harbor towards Bo in The Voice) so need to catch up. Might have a bet on Bin-Lydia to go, which isn’t wise having not watched the programme but what the hell, I’m going to live on the wild side.
*By which I mean that if this was The Hunger Games (which I’ve finished reading now and enjoyed, thought the film excellent too), she’d get a brick to the temple in about 5 minutes and deservedly so. In fact I’d probably have sponsored the brick in on a parachute.
It will be interesting how Big Brother develops on Sofabet, too time consuming for me at the minute but like Eurovicious will have a bet here and there.
Will check in with my pap mate and see what he thinks of it, he’s often up there, used to be anyway.
Victoria went not Lydia. Fuck.
Well done, the Great British Public, once again deciding that a woman past 40 with breast implants is the epitome of evil. Goodness help us all.
Thanks for the write-up Dug.
They look like a very interesting mix of HM’s this year.
The big shame is that we have no LF, as this could be a classic year.
Like – Ash, Sara, Caroline, Scott and Adam for now.
Will probably be a different 5 next week.
Market suggests it could be Chris v Lauren up for eviction
Wow the odds are very messed up for this series. Adam, Luke A and Benedict have no chance at winning in my opinion.
I think it’s between Becky, Caroline, Scott and LukeS/Connor (whichever ‘lad’ the tweens take to).
Becky an annoying attention seeker for me.
The market is starting to agree.
Agree about Luke A.
Apart from once being a woman he’s extremely dull.
The females as a whole look a far more interesting group.
The good looking guys are all fairly dull/arrogant.
Scott & Adam among the guys are the only 2 for me.
Arron v Chris this week.
Looks a tight contest.
A good looking guy like Arron would have easily stayed a few years back, but it’s a very different BB now, with just the hardcore left watching.
The polls have him going.
Marxists love Channel 5 innit.
I’ve gone fairly heavily for Chris to go at well over evens. Arron is beyond good looking – beautiful, I’d say – and Chris has a highly irritating voice, is aggressive and does two ****head jobs for a living.
There will be as many people voting Arron to get rid of Chris, as there will be voting to save Arron because of his good looks. Chris is the favourite to be evicted now so here’s hoping…
Good to see Sofabet covering Big Brother. I look forward to reading the rest of your coverage.
I’m not sure that I agree with your ‘jumping the shark’ comment though. Perhaps I’m more of a fan of the show than you but, if anything, I’d say the opposite is true.
There was a time when the casting of ordinary BB was done in very black and white terms – most characters were either ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’ and the highlights shows often made it very clear how each character should be viewed. The show tended to cast the ‘goodies’ with kind-hearted simpletons (as they were up for anything, had few inhibitions, and made good TV), and with morally upstanding pillars of the community (as they could be portrayed as standing up to the bullying ‘baddies’). I think it was at this point that your ‘jumping the shark’ comment was probably most justified. Many viewers saw the kind-hearted simpletons, with their lack of self-awareness and lack of self-control, and decided that the show was suitable viewing only for idiots. Other viewers saw the pillars of the community, who spent most of their time on the show doing nothing of interest, and decided that the show was boring.
The loss of these viewers means that BB is probably now down to its core audience, but I’d argue that the last couple of ordinary BBs have been amongst the best. One improvement has been better casting. Recent winners have still been more or less ‘goodies’ rather than ‘baddies’ but they have been much more ambiguous, and therefore more interesting, characters than in earlier series. A second improvement has been a lower profile in the press resulting in less need for the producers to create sensationalist headlines. Events can unfold at a more natural pace. A third improvement has been the change from ‘vote to evict’ to ‘vote to save’ as this tends to help the more interesting marmite characters at the expense of the dull one-dimensional ones.
From a betting point of view, these changes have been a mixed blessing. The more ambiguous casting has lead to more diverse opinions on who might win and to bigger swings in odds as events unfold. However, the lower audience figures have lead to lower liquidity in the markets.
I agree that this year’s cast looks very promising. I’m looking forward to three months of laughs, tragedies, breakdowns and arguments about who ate that extra sausage.
Thanks for your comment, Jamie, its great to hear such an impassioned response. I had worried that there would be little interest but as you state, there’s still a core audience there who want to natter about it. I agree that this series has been decent viewing so far – definitely better than the Rachel Rice years. I’ll be honest and say I stayed out of the last two series so I’m just getting back to grips with it now but I promise in it’s glory days you wouldn’t have found a bigger fan of the show. The vote to save is a good point and definitely one I neglected to consider last week with the eviction of Victoria. It’s a mixed thing, the vote-to-save, because on the one had it does save the more interesting characters but on the other it sort of ruins the basic elimination premise that BB was built upon. I suppose it’s a necessary sacrifice to prevent finals filled with boring pushovers.
I’m reading this nearly 2 months after it was written and there are only 6/7 housemates remaining.
Apart from Benedict, well done on being so accurate about what the housemates are like.
First impressions eh?!