Monday, April 21, 2008

Hosts Take New Approach

Kyle and Jackie O have been doing the interview rounds and have spilled a lot about the way their BB will differ from BB of the past. And it sounds good!
  • They will host in a more "helter-skelter" way, rather than reading from autocues. This is great because having two hosts, especially with the on-air relationship they have already established from so many years on radio, we can have discussions instead of information being driven at us by someone up there alone with no one to bounce off of.
  • Live audiences will be encouraged to cheer or boo housemates during live crosses to let them know how they are coming across outside the house. No more "quiet as a mouse" which never worked anyway. Let's face it, the Housemates know the audience is there. Now it's time to see whether they really WANT to know they are there! Imagine the first HM to unexpectedly get a good booing. This will dramatically affect the way they act for the next week.
  • Evictee interviews will ask the questions the viewers want answers to, rather than the questions BB wants you to know the answers to. Interviews will be conducted as they would do on their radio show. Gretel always had certain video packages prepared and knew she had to steer an interview down that path. Sure she would swap things around on the fly if the conversation strayed another way, but eventually all the prepared videos had to be shown. Hopefully with Kyle and Jackie they will just let fly with the questions and let the conversation naturally take its course and see where it goes.
  • They will change the show week-to-week if they want to try something new. We all know how scripted the live shows were in the past. In fact I even relaised if you watch 2 eviction or 2 nomination shows side by side you will even see exactly the same camera moves and positions. Also before eviction shows, the crew rehearse camera moves and positions without Gretel even being there, proving how structured every detail of the show would be. Hopefully we will now get a show driven by the hosts, rather than driven by the producers and directors. It should almost be a test of the crew to see if they can keep up.
  • Then 10 questions are gone. They were too bland, and the HM would usually let the audience answer them anyway. Everyone knew the answer structure. "Who had the worst habit?" would undoubtedly be "So-and-so because he farted all the time." If the hosts are going to ask the hard-hitting questions, then they can't fall back to the script when they're told to.
  • The phrase "It's time to go..." is gone. This will remain a Gretel trademark, and fitting that the new hosts bring in their own catch-phrase. Knowing Kyle, it will be "Get out, we've had enough of you.... Housemate Name".

It will be interesting to see just how much power the new hosts have over the series, but it might be in the show's best interests to give them all they want. We need to see hosts driving the show, rather than being dragged along behind it.