The Big Brother eye was revealed a few days ago (fingers on the pulse, us). Here’s the picture we’ve nicked off of Digital Spy:
It’s Emma Willis surrounded by loads of doors in the shape of an eye!
We probably won’t be covering Big Brother an awful lot (unless something very notable happens), so you’re well advised to have a look at BB Spy, which is the Bother’s Bar Big Brother fansite of choice. We just can’t commit to the amount of time BB requires of us these days, although we appreciate it as a production, and we’ll probably tune into Bit on the Side quite a lot (and we’re very pleased Willis will be staying on that).
However this year sounds actually rather more exciting than most because they’re subtitling the series Secrets and Lies and sounds like there’s going to be some quite interesting meta-gamage going on. The obvious suggestion is they’re going to be taking leaves out of Secret Story‘s book (Secret Story is an international BB variant), where everyone has a secret they have to defend whilst trying to work out the secrets of others. Whatsmore the house has plenty of secrets, usually with a big overarching puzzle with a prize being a direct trip to the final week. Obviously we love this sort of thing, but it is quite unusual for the UK production to directly borrow ideas from other countries without putting their own spin on it, more usual for everyone else to borrow our ideas, but this is a route we definitely like the idea of it going down.
An idea I idly had was one housemate being given something innocuous as an accessory to keep on them at all times that granted immunity for as long as nobody else in the house realised, but being given secret tasks that’d annoy the rest of the house with BB dripfeeding hints to the house if they didn’t perform.
If things like that happen we’ll be quite pleased. If things like “do this thing and we’ll reward you! Oh! We lied.” Is the overarching theme it will be rather more disappointing. Similarly prize fund twists can sod off.
No start date has been given yet, although the week 9th-15th of June is looking probable.
Some quiz figures from yesterday:
Perfection: 909k
Pointless: 2.90m
The Weakest Link: 193k
Mastermind: 213k
Eggheads: 1.16m
Tipping Point: 1.60m/80k
The Chase: 2.67m/240k
1001 Things You Should Know: 122k
Four Rooms: 257k
Countdown: 400k/80k
Deal or No Deal: 782k/85.5k
1001 Things You Should Know isn’t actually that far off what it was getting at 3:30 recently is it? I was expecting lower than 122k.
Countdown seems to have made a modest recovery which is nice. DoND’s rating seems a bit of a worry to me, though. I didn’t realise Tipping Point was hammering it so much.
Interestingly Four Rooms seems to be beating what Countdown was getting in the slot by about 25%. Good stuff.
Talking about Four Rooms. The primetime version is being aired on Friday nights from 7th June.
Curiosity: What’s Inside The Cube? probably, presumably, finishes within minutes or hours rather than within days/weeks/months. People are onto either the second last or last layer as I speak and it’s going fast. I look forward to exaggerated but plausible claims as to what the prize turns out to have been, as well as maybe even the truth.
The DASH puzzle hunt took place in London yesterday, having been run across the US the week beforehand. It was sensationally great, as was the company.
What’s inside the cube? I would guess that it’s a bunch of keys, a dozen-and-a-half or thereabouts.
I agree with the sentiments around the DASH event, and expect to write a report for the next edition of the Week.
Well, this was the secret – and the winner:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/bryan-henderson-curiosity-cube/
Yep, as I effectively boiled it down to on Twitter: you’ve won the digital equivalent of the Walkers Create a Flavour competition, expressed in the style of someone acting in The 7th Guest. Totally worth it.
And it’s not like it’s not been done before. I was the Norseman character in Molyneux’s Black & White *trufact*
I’m a soft touch for this sort of high-concept thing, but the thought of having one global game just to determine a winner who has a unique role in a follow-up game strikes me as a pretty good sort of stunt – and the fact that it has been done on such a big scale helps in that regard. Additionally, I’d be curious to know if anyone called it beforehand; I only saw a few predictions, and they didn’t get the substance of the prize. (Now what would have happened if the Godus Kickstarter had not funded? Perhaps PM and company would have gone on to make it anyway…)
Australia’s version of BB did a Secret Story-esque twist last year. The first week the men were shown the secrets for the seven women and had to match them all within a certain number of guesses – if they succeeded only women could be nominated, if they failed only men could. Same thing happened the next week with the women guessing the men’s secrets. Could be a version of that.
They also tried to trick the house into thinking they were competing against a second house (which was fake and populated by actors). Didn’t work too well, but BBUK could give it a new twist that makes it better.
Indeed, although like I said, it’d be unusual for the UK to lift something from Australia directly.
I’d certainly hope they look more towards Secret Story rather than the rather lame interpretation of it BB Aus had.