Big Brother Craze

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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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:

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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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CBS sent out a press release yesterday detailing their coverage of Big Brother 8. While there isn’t much new here, at least we have everything confirmed now. Here’s what’s on, and where.

Big Brother Episodes on CBS — Three nights a week: Tuesdays at 9pm, Thursdays at 8pm (live eviction episodes), and Sundays at 8pm. All times are Eastern.

Big Brother: After Dark — Nightly three-hour episodes from the live feeds on ShoToo, a cable network and sister station of CBS/Showtime. Details can be found here.

Big Brother Episodes on CBS.com — Watch Big Brother episodes and highlight reels on CBS.com. You can also snag video clips to use on blogs, websites, etc.

Big Brother Live Feeds — CBS has once again teamed up with RealNetworks to provide 24/7 live streaming coverage from within the Big Brother house. Viewers can access the feeds by purchasing the SuperPass through their favourite Big Brother website, or from CBS.com. As usual, certain things like competitions and double-eviction weekends may be blocked from the feeds to “preserve the drama” of the show.

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CBS is offering an exciting new addition to their Big Brother coverage this season. One of their sister networks, ShoToo (which is an offshoot of Showtime), will air three hours of the live feeds from inside the Big Brother house. Called “Big Brother: After Dark,” the show will cover some of the action that’s going on live between 9pm and midnight Big Brother time (PDT). That means for those of us on EDT, the show will air between midnight and 3am. This is usually a very active block of time on the feeds, especially if the houseguests have been given alcohol.

Since ShoToo regularly features some adult-themed material, the feeds will be uncensored for profanity and nudity. According to Variety, slanderous conversations and singing will still be filtered to avoid copyright infringement. Anyone who’s had the feeds before knows that BB theme music and a camera shot of a fish tank, flames, or even the front of the house have appeared whenever the houseguests start talking about people they know outside the house, or if they break out into song.

The Variety article also confirms that House Calls is indeed coming back, and Gretchen Massey will host. No official word yet on the co-host setup, however. It may end up being a revolving set of co-hosts for Gretchen, much like last season.

CBS has finally released the official schedule for Big Brother 8, which brings us one step closer to the cast announcement and the premiere.

Big Brother will premiere on July 5th, as anticipated, at 8:00pm Eastern. The schedule will be Tuesdays at 9:00pm, Thursdays at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 8:00pm (all times Eastern). As usual, the Thursday shows will be live eviction episodes.

As a result, Pirate Master will move from Thursdays to Tuesdays, beginning on July 10th. On July 5th, the sixth episode of Pirate Master will follow the Big Brother premiere.

Spiffy logo screen cap comes courtesy of Dingo’s Hamster Watch.

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While watching Pirate Masters last night, I caught the Big Brother ad a few times - but it’s been changed slightly. Now, at the end, there’s a short clip of Janelle saying, “What goes around comes around.” This is followed by a grinning Julie Chen nodding and saying, “Ohhhh yeah!”

Does this support the high school enemies theory for this season’s theme? Sure it does.

Edit … Here’s the video from YouTube:

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There are loads of discussions going around about the possibility of the new Big Brother 8 theme. So many, in fact, that I’m not going to worry about leaving spoiler space this time as I did with my first report. If you don’t enjoy reading spoilers, even those that are based on speculation, then stop reading now.

Still with me? Good.

As I mentioned before, TV Grapevine is reporting that the new theme for Big Brother 8 will be school bullies versus those they bullied. But posts on other message boards are hinting that this is a bit extreme. It seems that the theme has something to do with past friends and enemies, not necessarily bullies or those they bullied.

This post at Survivor Sucks was started by someone who claims to have made it to the semi-finals in the auditions process, and was asked questions about past friends and enemies in high school. Most of his or her posts have been cleared out for giving away too much information, but it’s not difficult to piece things together from the rest of the conversation. It is also suggested that the theme might have something to do with vengeance.

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This morning I stumbled on one person’s report of what the new theme will be for Big Brother 8. The report comes from TV Grapevine, which is a well-established site for reality TV news and gossip.

As I mentioned before, there are always stories and rumours flying around before any new season of BB starts up. Everyone involved wants to get the scoop, of course! Before the All Stars season, for example, there were reports of a private section of the house where those who didn’t make it in to the main house would be sequestered, and they’d have a chance to get into the game through competitions or audience votes. That’s just the very tip of the iceberg.

I do want to point out though that the person making this report is respected in the TV Grapevine community, and wouldn’t make their information public unless they had good reason to believe it was true. Since I don’t want to put spoilers on the front page if I can avoid it, click on the link below to read the details of this report.

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The months and weeks leading up to a new Big Brother season are almost as much fun as the show itself. Trying to guess at what the theme will be, what the houseguests will have to eat, who the contestants are, and what new surprises are in store for us is like piecing together a mystery. There are always wild rumours that seem just crazy enough to be true, but rarely are. So, in the spirit of “take everything you hear with a grain of salt,” here is what I’ve been able to dig up so far.

The premiere date hasn’t been officially announced, but it’s assumed that July 5th is the big day. Julie Chen will return as host. Arnold Shapiro is no longer the Executive Producer - he is now an Executive Consultant. Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan are now the Executive Producers. Hopefully this means a bit of a shakeup is coming to the format of the show. This is where the stuff we know for sure ends, and the speculation and rumours begin.

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