Big Brother Craze

No transcript of the show, because YouTube is just so much easier! Here’s Julie Chen’s appearance from last night on The Late Show with David Letterman. Keep in mind that Dave is no fan of reality TV.

The CBS Big Brother 8 page is finally up, but there’s very little there to see. The design is nice and fresh, and there are of course some promotional blurbs as well as the pictures and brief bios of the houseguests.

There are also some “Fun Facts” about Big Brother, which is not a bad addition as long as they change frequently. My favourite one is this:

All Star and winner of BB2 Will Kirby has spent the most days in the house with 147. He never won a Head of Household or Power of Veto competition.

Heh. Good old Dr. Will.

Keep checking back though - I’m sure there will be more added soon!

According to Variety, the details of the widely hinted “most interactive season yet” are coming through now.

Called “America’s Player,” this twist allows fans to vote on things for the houseguests to do, and if they go through with these suggestions they can win extra money. Ideas can range anywhere from voting someone out to something more mundane like flirting. Here’s the quote from Variety:

In a nutshell, that contestant will have the chance to win extra sums of money– but only if they carry out certain actions mandated by viewers via internet or text message voting.

We could have a lot of fun with this one!

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It’s finally here! The Big Brother 8 cast was announced this morning on The Early Show, and it appears to be a somewhat diverse group of people. Allison Grodner confirmed once again that some of the houseguests will learn that they’ll be sharing the house with “the last person on earth they’d ever want to see” walk through those doors. This sounds an awful lot like the X-Factor, doesn’t it? They’ll probably do the premiere the same way as they did for that one too.

Anyway, without further ado, here is your Big Brother 8 cast:

Amber, 27 years old, cocktail waitress from Las Vegas, separated

Carol, 21 years old, student from Lawrence, Kansas, single

Daniele, 20 years old, waitress from Huntington Beach, California, single

Dick, 44 years old, bar manager from Los Angeles, single

(more…)

Thanks to Joker’s Updates for this new commercial, which confirms that the theme this year is indeed Enemies.

Now we just need the cast …

Okay, so it’s not really new per se, but it’s different and that’s what counts.

A poster at RealityBBQ had this to say:

It has an Alice in Wonderland theme. The colors are pastel and very bright. This house will pop! The bug room is now a room for “big people” and through a small door is a room for “little people”. The Love/Hate room is now “The Harem”. The back yard is filled with animal shaped bushes. The wall upstairs’s wallpaper is a summer northeastern forest.

It was all quite beautiful.

To confirm the fairy tale theme, some photos were posted today at TVGuide.com. Included in the photos is this image, which clearly shows the memory wall with 14 spots. That means 14 houseguests.

One bedroom is crowded with 5-foot long beds, while another features a dresser that the houseguests will have to climb a stepladder to be able to reach the top drawer. Outside there are indeed topiaries cut into animal shapes, as well as a giant chess board and a spinning tea cup.

This fairy tale theme is much different from the dark flaming walls of last season, and it’s a welcome change. My guess is that this fairy tale thing will be carried through the competitions as well.

Also, there’s this little blurb in The Early Show’s newsletter:

“Big Brother” fans, get ready! We are putting the final touches on the new house and this summer’s big twist in the game as a new group of houseguests is packing their bags. I just finished looking at a DVD of the people who will be vying for the half-million dollar prize starting July 5, and this group is one of the most diverse and outspoken groups yet! It’s bound to be an exciting season. And this year, for the first time, we’ll be airing a three-hour nightly broadcast on Showtime 2, “Big Brother, After Dark.” It’ll be live action from inside the house every night from midnight to 3 a.m. That’s when the houseguests are at their craziest … whether they’re partying, strategizing or simply hanging out.

Hopefully that means that the website and cast reveal are only hours away!

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Websites and message boards are buzzing now - it appears that someone was tipped off that tomorrow is Big Brother press day, and information should start leaking out. While I can’t confirm this yet, a source who doesn’t want to be named confirmed that the houseguests have been sequestered and that promotional photos and all of that good stuff are ready to go.

The cast is usually revealed on The Early Show, and while their website doesn’t say anything about Big Brother for tomorrow, the only thing they have scheduled is an appearance by Bruce Willis. Since it’s a two-hour show there’s lots of time left to fill. Keep your fingers crossed and keep checking back!

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Yes, I’m reaching a bit for a topic today because there’s no new information to report so far. The powers that be at CBS are silent, which is understandable but oh so aggravating! Rather than reach back into past seasons and post a video clip, I thought I’d do up a little refresher on the acronyms and abbreviations that will most likely show up here during the season. This should give the spell checker a good workout! Here we go:

• BB – Big Brother (also refers to the voice that comes over the PA system in the house)
• BBT – Big Brother Time, which is PDT (Pacific Daylight Time)
• Chenbot – Julie Chen
• DOR – Drop on Request (this happens when a houseguests exercises their right to leave the house voluntarily, forfeiting any money they may have made while in the house)
• DR – Diary Room
• GPoV – Golden Power of Veto
• Hamsters – Houseguests
• HG(s) – Houseguest(s)
• HoH – Head of Household
• HoH Room – The bedroom belonging to the HoH
• LD - Lockdown (when the houseguests are locked either inside or outside the house while production sets up competitions or does other work)
• PoV – Power of Veto

Of course there will also be nicknames for the various hamsters on the show, but until we get a cast reveal and can see them in action, those will have to wait!

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Every season of Big Brother has its stand-out personalities. During Big Brother 3, we met Marcellas Reynolds and knew immediately that he was one of those stand-outs. Since BB3, Marcellas has gone on to host House Calls and appear in Big Brother All Stars. But there’s a whole lot more to the man than just Big Brother.

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Marcellas and ask him a few questions on life after Big Brother.

Carrie: Hi Marcellas! Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! For anyone who isn’t up to date on what you’ve been doing lately, what’s been keeping you busy since last season’s All Stars?

Marcellas: Well I’m “Celebrity Stylist” Marcellas Reynolds. Who knows what the moniker means? I’m a fashion stylist. I work with celebrities such as David Schwimmer, Eddie Cibrian, Jennifer Finnegan and several others on fashion shoots and for special events like the Emmys, Grammys… I’ve also become popular on the TV make-over circuit. The Tyra Banks Show, How Do I Look, E! News Daily, The Daily 10, The Greg Behrendt’s Show… the list grows each day. I’m shooting a pilot with Telepictures on the day House Calls starts. I wouldn’t have been available the first episode anyway. I’m literally booked out 2 months
in advance with TV shows and appearances. I just shot MTV’s Next, where I did make-overs on the daters and coming up I have a few epis of a new fashion series for VH1. I’m blessed. And busy.

Carrie: You’ve become quite the fashion maven these days, with columns in Life & Style and all of your television appearances! How would you define your own personal style?

Marcellas: My style? I’d say classic meets casual with a bit of hip. I always do a blazer. Even with jeans. Lately I’ve discovered ascots, pocket squares and scarves. And of course a good watch. Then a great pair of jeans that aren’t ripped or distressed and a good shoe. Men should always wear polished shoes and a good watch. I have a Rolex and a vintage Tag Heuer that I alternate.

Carrie: Who would you say is the best dressed celebrity right at this moment? The worst? Why?

Marcellas: Right now I love Cameron Diaz, Halle Berry and Natalie Portman. They are always sexy, classy, yet still take risks. I also love Mischa Barton. Everything looks good on her. Paris, Nicole and the Olsen sisters are fashion nightmares. Paris and Nicole are Zoe-bots (Rachel Zoe) and have her style. Clones that look just like her. And the Olsen twins never dress to their physical stature. Everything overwhelms them. And they have questionable taste. If someone says,”It’s the bag of the moment,” or shoe or whatever, they have it. Even if it isn’t cute.

(more…)

A new poster over at Joker’s Updates has posted what they believe is the cast list for Big Brother 8. It’s also been posted at TV Grapevine. This post quickly grew legs and has spread all over the ‘net.

Before getting to the list itself, let’s take a quick look at the credibility angle first. While the poster is new to Joker’s, he’s apparently been posting for some time at Survivor Sucks, which is well-known for spoiling Survivor cast lists. On the other hand, he says he got a “few minutes glance” at the BB cast list, then at the bottom of the post he says, “don’t ask how I got it.” Unless he was taking notes, it’s hard to imagine that he remembered all of this information after a glance. Plus, leaked cast lists happen all the time and they’re very rarely accurate.

The list contains 14 slots, which could mean 14 houseguests. It could also include the alternates that are to be sequestered with the houseguests in case one of them disqualifies themselves before entering the house. (Remember Brandon from BB4?)

So, without further ado, here’s the list, verbatim, that was posted:

(more…)

There’s a new article promoting Big Brother 8 at the Variety website, and it’s very promising for fans of the show. Check out these little tidbits:

“This year, there will be something die-hard fans will love,” [executive producer Alison] Grodner hints. “It will give them the opportunity to participate even more than they have in the past.”

“It’s important to make sure you don’t betray the vision of the show,” [Ghen Maynard] says. “If you do too many tricks and stunts, you betray that.”

More interactive and true to the “vision of the show.” These are good things!

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This one comes straight from CBS, although it appears to be the same ad that appeared during Pirate Master on Thursday night.

Here’s the promo blurb:

BIG BROTHER 8 will premiere on the CBS Television Network on Thursday, July 5 (8:00–9:00 PM, ET/PT), kicking off a multi-platform summer that will include presentations of the series online, on the phone and, for the first time, on Showtime Networks. New and creative secret twists will play out during the summer broadcasts as BIG BROTHER 8 follows the relationships and conflicts of players who live together in a house outfitted with dozens of cameras and microphones recording their every move 24 hours a day. One by one, the houseguests will vote each other out of the house. At the end of three months, the last remaining houseguest will receive the grand prize.

And the video:

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After my posting yesterday about Lex possibly joining his Survivor nemesis Boston Rob in the Big Brother 8 house, I got an e-mail from our very own Lessa, who skillfully writes the Watching Survivor blog. She has a source who confirmed for us that Lex will NOT be joining the cast this season. So there you go. Not that we believed it anyway, right?

Right?

Besides, wouldn’t you rather see Alicia and Kimmi battle it out all summer?

Someone’s having some fun over at Wikipedia.

Now, not only do we have Boston Rob rumoured to be on Big Brother 8, but also his Survivor All Stars “enemy”, Lex van den Berghe. Check out Lex’s page at Wikipedia.

Lex has signed on to appear in Big Brother 8 for the summer of 2007.

While I seriously doubt that either one of these two will be houseguests, I suppose it’s a possibility that they’ll make an appearance for a competition or some kind of special episode. But let’s just sit back and watch as this one catches on like wildfire, shall we?

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You know it’s getting close to Big Brother time when you start seeing ads for the live feeds popping up everywhere. The ads were released on Wednesday, giving us a couple of weeks to sign up and play with the settings.

Big Brother geeks like myself also enjoy peeking in every now and then to see if anything new is appearing on the screens. Last year we got audio of the houseguests in the house, spoiling the All Star cast before the big reveal on premiere night.

Now, with two weeks to go until the premiere of Big Brother 8, the feeds are running and we’re being told to stay tuned. Joker’s Updates has video captures from the feeds posted, showing a picture of water with piano music in the background. This is similar to what was shown last season just before the feeds went live, so I doubt that this is what we’ll be enduring when the feeds are temporarily down this season. At least I hope not.

I’ll be posting a brief daily recap of the live feeds every day during the course of the season, highlighting the major events of the day. I’ll also keep you updated with breaking news on competition winners, nominations, and food competitions. For more in-depth coverage of the live feeds, Reality Shack has detailed daily recaps of all the action on the feeds, laced with humour and a healthy dose of snark.

Only 14 days to go!

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