Divide and Conquer! (Big Brother (TV Series))

Member Name: alirigby

Product:	Big Brother (TV Series)
Date:	10/06/02 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Addictive, Interesting

Disadvantages: Addictive, Dominates your life

I will not go into the format of the show or write in detail about the housemates this year as I have seen that there are dozens of ops which already discuss this. This opinion will focus on the Big Brother house since Saturday night when it was split into two.

Dividing the house:
This year the production team have decided to introduce a ‘heaven and hell’ format to the game which has also been used in the German and Dutch versions of the show (in Holland, mini tasks were set to allow housemates to move between the two areas). This involves splitting the house into 2 and dividing the housemates between the sides, one being like heaven and the other like hell.

It took around 2 hours for the house to be transformed from one large, comfy living area to two distinctly different halves. Glass bars were brought in and positioned across the house so that a bedroom was left on each side (the majority of living space is given to the ‘rich’ side); the bars even go across the middle of the dining table! There are 2 doors now into the diary room (one from each side). Strict rules ensure that housemates do not pass anything across the bars, although they are allowed to touch (Kate passed beer to Spencer in a mouth-to-mouth fashion yesterday which was reprimanded!).

Who goes where?
The outcome of Saturday night’s task – shown live on Channel 4, Saturday nights at 10pm – determines who will live like kings for a week and who would live on basic rations in humbler accommodation. This week’s task was throwing a basketball through the hoop; the first five to get one in would live in the ‘rich’ side of the house whilst the remaining five would be condemned to the ‘poor’ side.
This is apparently the way in which the house will remain until the end of the series.

Sandy, Kate, Lee, Sophie and Jonny were the lucky housemates to successfully complete the task and
are now living in one half of the house with £400 housekeeping allowance, 4 hours of hot water per day, a relatively comfortable bedroom and the use of a laundry service.

Jade, PJ, Spencer, Adele and Alex are confined to the other side of the house which has a small, uncomfortable bedroom, an outdoor loo and shower, no hot water and basic rations (chickpeas, pasta, veg from the garden). They get no housekeeping and must cook all food on an outdoor stove/barbeque (and they’re not allowed to kill the chickens which is a great temptation with the Barbie nearby!).


The housemate’s reaction:
The housemates had no idea what was going on when, on Saturday night, they were confined to the bedrooms after the task (apart from Sophie who may have heard previous rumours). When they were finally allowed out of the bedrooms and saw the house divided, they couldn’t believe it and there was an element of shock and excitement in the air. Once the new rules were read out, it dawned on them how different life in the house would be from now on. So far they all seem to be, other than Sandy, coping ok…

At the moment Sandy is threatening to leave the house, he’s had enough and he’s on the ‘rich’ side (he can’t stand Jonny however)! Jade’s had a few tearful moments exclaiming ‘I’ve never had to live like this and I don’t know what to do!’. Spencer and Kate have been separated (thankfully!) and she seems more bothered about this than him, although she’ll pretend she’s not that bothered. Moany Alex is, slowly but surely, strengthening his position in the house although he’s probably still going to be up for eviction. Sophie and Lee are, unfortunately, both on the ‘rich’ side and are still continuously, and tediously, flirting. Jonny can’t understand why Sandy’s upset, Adele’s still bitching and PJ is just getting on w
ith it!!
I’m surprised no one from the ‘poor’ side has walked yet, I don’t think I’d put up with that for the sake of TV!

Overall:
This definitely makes for a more interesting programme (especially in the long run) as dividing the housemates and flaunting luxury in the face of hardship is bound to create extra tension and bitching. It has been interesting to see that the ‘poor’ side is doing a better job of bonding and occupying themselves whilst the ‘rich’ side seem to feel guilty, bored and spend a lot of time in bed. Perhaps winning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, although I’m sure Spencer & PJ will live it up 100% on the ‘rich’ side if they manage to make it across there! Things could all change with the weekly task; they’re in for a turbulent ride!

***** UPDATE *****
It's Day 19 and the nominations have been announced: Jonny and Lee are up for the chop! Interesting that 2 of the 'rich' housemates have been nominated, expect the tension to get even greater!
The girls have also been set a task today - they have to keep a football up in the air for as long as possible without using their hands or arms; the number of keepie uppies that they manage to do will be the length of time the house will be allowed to watch the England-Nigeria game tommorow (10 keepie uppies = 10 mins of footy)!

Day 20: The excitement of watching 25 minutes of the game was somewhat overshadowed this morning by Sandy's escape from the house.
Lee is now threatening to leave as well and the other HM's have been flaunting the rules of the divide. Perhaps it's not working out after all...


The only thing I really dislike about Big Brother is the bird tweeting and aeroplane noises on the live programme on E4; it always seems to happen when they are about to say something interesting!

For more info:
Visit the
official website: www.channel4.com/bigbrother
Or for very up-to-date info: http://bigbrother.digitalspy.co.uk/
Or on TV….
Big Brother 10pm weekdays on Channel 4
Big Brother’s Little Brother weekdays at 7pm on E4
Live weekly tasks Saturday nights 10pm Channel 4
Watch 24 hours a day on E4.

Summary: