CBB's Mammouth Task.

In the couple of days since my previous post on the subject it has been revealed why Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) has been a little bit flat over the start of this week - Big Brother had been saving itself up for an absolutely epic shopping task. This involved the housemates having to 'trek across the arctic to the north pole.'

In practical terms this involved the housemates having to walk in giant circle in a garden filled with fake snow covering a distance of around 120km (70miles) in two days. Primarily the purpose of this exercise was to try and lighten the mood in the house by getting the housemates taking exercise out in the fresh air and sunlight in order to boost their serotonin levels. However there was an awful lot more involved in the task.

For example the housemates were spilt into two groups; "The Explorers" (Jim Davidson, Linda Nolan, Liz Jones, Ollie Locke and Sam Faiers) whose job it was to ride around on a dog sled and "The Huskies" (Luisa Zissman, Dappy, Lee Ryan and Casey Batchelor) whose job it was to pull the dog sled and the explorers around. Just to complicate matters periodically an alarm would sound and the explorers had to chain the huskies up to a wall and gather around the sled to protect the group. The selection of the groups was far from random though and represented a split amongst the housemates that has been evident pretty much from the start of the show. The explorer group was made up of the older housemates who have generally been behaving themselves and conducting themselves with decorum. Although Sam and Ollie are both younger then Lee and I think Luisa they've generally been behaving in a more mature manner. The huskie group was made up of the housemates who have been behaving outrageously with their nudity, sex games and incestuous love triangles.

Whenever the two groups interacted the explorers got the impression that the huskies were getting the worse treatment being forced to do all the work, being fed only 'dog food' (cold minced beef and onions) and being made to sleep in a 'kennel' outside of the main house. This obviously played particularly on Liz Jones' somewhat bizarre attitudes towards animal rights. However the 'kennel' was actually a special room kitted out much like a traditional English pub with quality food, alcohol on tap, soft sofas and big screen TV's on which the huskies could watch the explorers sitting around feeling sorry for huskies and the rough treatment they were getting. The real purpose of the task therefore was for the huskies to keep the preferential treatment they were getting a secret from the explorers. The intention here seemed to be to make the huskies feel guilty about what they were putting the explorers through while they were having their fun in the hope it would make the huskies moderate their behaviour once the task was over.

One of the things the huskies got to watch while they were viewing the explorers on TV was another round of the argument between Jim and Linda. Basically on Monday (20/1/14) night Jim, Linda and Liz were sitting around quietly on the sofas afraid to have any fun while the huskies were suffering. In an effort to break the silence Jim started talking about his experience of being arrested for alleged sex offences as part of the Jimmy Savile investigation which prevented him from appearing on last winter's season of CBB. This is obviously something that has been playing on Jim's mind throughout the show and in fact I think one of his main reasons for appearing was to rehabilitate his reputation by pointing out that there was never any suggestion he was involved in child sex offences and no charges of any sort were ever filed. However all the talk of arrest, the criminal justice system and the damage it can do to a celebrity's reputation made Linda think that Jim was having another sideways dig at her husband Brian Hudson and his legal troubles that began in Frank Carson's dressing room. As a result Linda exploded and had another long rant at Jim during which even the ever supportive Sam looked like she had had enough of Linda.

Another interesting aspect of this enormous task saw the explorers having to go ice fishing. This involved the explorers having to dangle a fishing line through a hole that had been cut into the set. Beneath them members of the production crew would attach either dead fish or bits of squid to the line. The huskies would then have to use their mouths to pull these fishy bits off the lines and put them in a bowl where they'd be added up and the housemates would be given some sort of reward. This was very much an attempt to encourage Lee and Casey to resume their relationship by breaking down the psychological barriers that were keeping them apart. The psychological barrier of being prepared to put disgusting fishy bits in your mouth on national TV was a not particularly subtle reference to oral sex. This aspect of the task seems to have had some success with a kind of drunk Casey 'jokingly' asking Lee if he'd like a blow job.

With Lee and Casey moving ever closer together Luisa has started to begin to try and push them apart. Rather then being the result of malice this seems to be a genuine concern on the part of Luisa that Casey would be humiliating herself by taking Lee back. It involves pretty much the same trick that Jim was playing of asking Lee and Casey questions about their relationship such as whether they're sleeping in the same bed but the way Luisa is asking the questions discourages the relationship. For example where Jim would have asked if they're sleeping in the same bed Luisa would ask if they're sleeping in the same bed that Lee shared with Jasmine. This could become an issue over the coming days if other housemates choose sides either to encourage or discourage Lee and Casey's relationship. The key issue though will be how the Jim and Linda argument is resolved because if that is still going on most other housemates will probably opt to keep their heads down in the hope of a quiet life.

One step in the right direction is that Liz Jones was evicted during Wednesday's (22/1/14)  live show. This was almost immediately followed by another round of face to face nominations for eviction. These won't be broadcast until tonight but I gather Liz's departure has thrown the game wide open with five of the remaining eight housemates up for eviction. These include Linda who I think should go next for the reasons already discussed.


16:15 on 23/1/14 (UK date).


Updated at around 11:25 on 24/1/14 (UK date) to add;

Whilst watching yesterday's (23/1/14) highlights show I appear to have Tweeted myself into work. That show that featured events from Wednesday focused mainly on the eviction of Liz and the face to face nominations that followed. However before all that Big Brother set Sam and Ollie a special task.

Sam and Ollie have developed a reputation for hiding in the background and not expressing strong opinions on any of the major issues in the house. In the UK we describe this as "sitting on the fence." So Big Brother got Sam and Ollie to literally sit on a fence in front of all the other housemates. They were then forced to pick a side on all the major issues by standing on one side or the other of that fence. For example they were asked who was the most sexist; Jim or Dappy and whether Casey or Lee was getting the most out of their resumed relationship. The purpose of this was obviously to encourage Sam and Ollie to participate in the show by forcing them to pick a side on the major issues.

The first concern about this task is that Sam and Ollie do have opinions about the goings on in the house. They just choose to express them more discreetly. For example Ollie is perfectly happy to join Lee and Dappy on team Jim but anytime Jim goes too far Ollie will rush over to Linda to console her. This effectively makes Sam and Ollie swing voters whose opinions are needed to form a group majority in order to solve any issue. They are also quite easy for other stronger personalities (Luisa) to nudge in a certain direction. By forcing Sam and Ollie to declare firm positions on all the major issues in front of what turned into an open group discussion on the main issues makes it more difficult for them to act and be used in this way which in my opinion makes for a more boring TV show.

The second concern I have about this task is that its objective seems to have already been achieved through Sam's facing of the public eviction vote. This called into sharp focus for Sam that if she wanted to stay on the show she needed to play a more overt role in the house in order to secure more screen time. As a result Sam went on to cause a bit of controversy by suggesting that Ollie didn't really stand much of a chance with her romantically. This obviously caused a bit of tension with Ollie securing Sam a bit more screen time while also passing on the message to Ollie that he needs to do more to get his face known. Big Brother restating this warning to Sam and Ollie through the task sent the pair, and Ollie particularly, into a bit of a frenzy for attention.

The problem is that coming from "The Only Way Is Essex" and "Made in Chelsea" respectively both Sam and Ollie are most familiar with the 'structured reality' concept. I personally find this type of show quite horrific because they claim to be almost documentaries following people as they go about their everyday lives. However because they're 'structured' these shows are entirely fake so what you actually get is people acting out (often really badly) cartoonish like characters that just happen to have the same name as the actor playing them. So in his quest for attention Ollie immediately reverted to this mode structuring a scene in which he gathered all the housemates around the couches and gave them a long speech about how offended (for really nonsense reasons) he was about being nominated by other housemates. This was so fake and so cheesy that it ended up sending other housemates into fits of laughter (Luisa and Linda) and sarcastic applause (Jim). Sadly Ollie didn't quite get the hint so responded by continuing to play his outraged Made in Chelsea character.

(Originally Posted on 23/1/14)