I watched it last night as my teenage daughter told me that Cory was going into the house and that he would be supervised by the older lady and that he wasn't allowed to drink....I thought it would be very interesting to see how that unfolded.

What was interesting was Cory's behaviour. He just kept fixing himself up, playing with his hair. His only focus appeared to be how he looked and his hair to the point where it appeared obsessive. This is interesting because this is how many young people of day present. Their focus is how they look, thier hair, where they are going to get thier next alcoholic drink from and where are the parties. Education and preparing themselves for their future just seems to not be something about which they care. We really need our Education system to present a different focus and we need to better educate our kids.

I walked past the TV long enough to see that Corey Worthington ask Big Brother a request - wait for it....he wanted a hair straightener.

BY the way, I heard he lept over the house fence and ?went AWOL.

These shows only serve to make dumb Australians more dumb.
Forget it; bring on Origin.

In answer to your original question, Gaz, I really don't think that they're going to be acquiring any "smart" viewers. For a start, all they appear to have done is muddled up the mix a bit by adding a clearly pretty stupid grandmother who has some "controversial" (read: entirely predictable) views, a man with a high voice, and — shock! — an Indigenous woman, to the same old crew.

Plus, they've dumped the Gretel, whose snarly, critical eye served as a buffer between the labrats and us. She gave us permission to NOT take them — and ergo the whole show — seriously. And replace her with who? Kyle and Jacqui O — two of the thickest thickies thicksville ever produced.

I think the first UK series (i.e. the first series ever) was innovative, interesting telly. Not highbrow telly, but good middlebrow telly. I was in the UK at the time, and, as I remember it, the whole thing seemed groundbreaking — live feeds on screens in Piccadilly Circus, the early days of mobile phone content. There were no real gimmicks to speak of, just a very varied group of humans locked in a house together. The emphasis on in Australia is blondness, attractiveness, extroversion and stupidity; in the very first UK series, it was on finding a wide variety of people. There was only one "hottie", and she was black. The final was between a salt-of-the-earth working class builder and a bitingly witty lesbian ex-nun.

The builder won.

That should have been it. That should have been the first and last Big Brother. The experiment relied on the element of surprise — kids now grow up watching BB and planning who they'll "be" when they're in the house.

The novelty is over, so now it's reality telly at its most banal. And it's really freaking dull. I mean, Jeez, if Corey Worthington is their twist...

cont..

Cont...

Kids will always want to watch zietgiest stuff like BB. I think that's fine, we all did it, it provides a point of social/generational reference now and later. (My partner and I still talk about stuff the Fonze did.) I think if you want to give your kids a good cultural education, let them watch and read what they want but continue to point them in the direction of good art, film, literature. My mum let me gorge myself on crap telly, but she gave me Austen and Eliot to read, and talked to me about them. Most people eventually end up modelling or at least approximating the reading habits of their parents. If you veg out with The Da Vinci Code, you can't expect them to crave Dostoevsky.

That said, even a mediocre novel can teach you more about human nature than Big-bloody-Brother.

So, that's my review. Must-miss TV.

My guess is that the ratings will be slightly less than last year — as happens most years — but still gazillions more than watch anything on the ABC.

P.S. One difference, actually, between my generation (I'm pushing 40) and kids today is that we all grew up with just one telly in the house. A lot of children these days have their own. Therefore I was forcefed (if I wanted to watch telly, which I always did) Four Corners and This Day Tonight and BBC adaptations of Shakespeare from a young age. Hated it at the time, but it taught me to appreciate news values and distinguish between investigative, analytical journalism, and car-crash journalism.

Blah blah blah,

Big Brother, Plasma TVs, the old criticize the young for being 'vacuous', the pseudo intellectuals think the world's ending because people watch crap TV. The generation gap, class hatred, sometimes I think there's nothing new in this world.

I know I'm not the first to think that everything has been thought before:-)

Caters! I couldnt agree more. At least the footy has a point to it.