Big Brother 15: Week 3 Assessment

 Big Brother 15: Week 3

 

 Stand back, there’s a hurricane coming through…

Or at least there was, as three weeks into the show the British public once again made one of their trademark terrible decisions by removing Toya Washington from the Big Brother 15 house, and with it remove the source of a large proportion of all of the conflict from the series within the past week, but coming from a public which rewarded Sam Evans 100k for being attractive I cannot say I’m surprised.

As I said last week in my week 3 assessment Toya’s departure was not one which was unexpected, I was left with the feeling that when the decision was made to allow the housemates to put one of the two power housemates up for the week that the decision was made to orchestrate Toya’s departure from the show, which at the time was something that I was supportive of as I considered her abrasive but without any kind of pantomime quality to redeem her behaviour, you could argue that her delusional interpretation of herself was an example of that but you are stretching it however. By the end of the week however she was someone who I was actively rooting to remain in the show, she begun to show a lot more depth as a personality in the show and whilst she still wasn’t my cup of tea compared to some of the others in there she was practically Ghandi. Someone said it best when they described Toya as the best third placer that never was, and I think that her departure should be used as evidence to production that whilst twists are a necessity for drama that too many of them can create this kind of situation in the future robbing us of future Toyas.

Where I will give production a lot of credit for however managing to make this eviction so competitive, this eviction should have been a cakewalk basically designed to crown off Toya’s departure from the show, and yet through clever editing, some carefully chosen twists and the self destruction of the housemates in week 3 we ended up turning this into arguably one of the most competitive and passionate evictions of the Channel 5 era. I struggle to think of the last time that I saw an eviction which people got so wound up over, creating an eviction atmosphere which was passionate to the point of being hostile. Not only through Toya’s actions early in the week which of course played a part in her eviction but also through the emergence of Ash as probably the worst contestant of this series. I always had issues with Ash from a very early stage of the show, but within this past week he began to reach almost Kris Donnelly levels of obnoxiousness, arrogance and self entitlement which is completely unjustified, someone who believes everything should be handed to him on a silver platter because he’s attractive despite the fact that he is in fact boorish, dull, sexist, arrogant, egotistical and one of the least interesting characters of the series. It’s the main reason more then anything why I had such issues with Toya departing this week, not so much because Toya was so amazing as a housemate but because the potential uproar that would have come with an Ash downfall would have had long term effect on the house as well as giving us an eviction which would have given Sezer a run for his money, instead however keeping Ash in the house has left a dull personality in the show and at the same time helped enable his side of the house (consisting of an obnoxious male foursome and Helen) to dictate the flow of play within the show. The only consolation I can make is that keeping Ash does avoid the possibility of a Helen underdog redemption arc, but once again I am clutching at straws for that one.

Aside from the result though I cannot fault week 3 from an entertainment perspective, a week that had a large number of major arguments and in the process helped to bring a number of minority characters to the forefront. Matthew finally emerged out of his spineless shell to be the unlikely combatant against Helen’s house tyranny, and whilst I did find it refreshing to see a combative side to Matthew I also felt that he was quite lucky to have some cards fall into place for him in the show, there is a slightly snobbish and bitchy side to him during any of his interpersonal conversations and yet due to being well spoken and against Helen’s side of the house I don’t think the wider public will pay too much attention to these shortcomings. Ashleigh was another one to emerge out of the woodwork this week, it has taken me a long time to really get a grasp on Ashleigh in the show, as for me personally her role in the show had been to be a Sophie Reade style figure to remain grounded and relatable against a sea of obnoxious forces, pleasant enough but devoid of any engagement, and yet this week saw her as the victim for Helen’s side of the house and pushed into somewhat of a protagonist role and as a result somebody who might be considered something of a dark house, an underdog position, likeable and with a sidekick in Danielle to take any of the public’s ammunition should she find herself in trouble.

Aside from the emergence of them two Helen of course stole the headlines with another aggressive and berating performance against Matthew which warranted a formal warning and yet more calls for her free pass to be revoked, I can’t believe now that I had her down to be a boring filler housemate when I did my launch night assessment. Whilst Helen is aggressive though I still stand more on the positive side of her as a housemate simply because of the drama she is bringing to the show and the passion she is generating in the audience, and with more confrontational housemates falling by the wayside Helen’s presence as a consistent source of arguments until the final is a good safety net to fall back on. What this week and the argument with Matthew did do for Helen however was get to the source of the reason for a lot of her problems, namely the need for control in a group dynamic, her issues with Matthew stemmed not through Matthew himself but through Matthew not seeing Helen’s interpretation of fun himself. Helen comes across to me like somebody who probably would like the group to get along, but only as long as it is on her levels and to her approval, and the reason why she has associated herself with a group of spineless alpha males who both share Helen’s interpretation of fun and are too scared to speak up against her.

As entertaining as BB15 has been I do have a number of issues with the structure of the series so far. Firstly I have a small issue with the future portrayal of Mark on the show, whilst I do agree that Mark has come across as a lot more likable this week then what I expected this past week has also seen him being used a lot more as the light relief contestant, getting a huge number of individual tasks to distract away from the negative atmosphere that the show has generated, and I get the fear that the over-promotion of Mark in this role is going to lead to him becoming incredibly irritating to watch, something made worse when you also consider the air of contrivance surrounding a lot of his actions. The second issue stems from the Power Housemate twist this year, whilst I am somebody who does like the power twist and support the idea of the twist continuing I do feel that one of the things it has done structurally is lead to a lack of long-term story-arcs within the show, instead containing nearly every major house storyline to a weekly basis, beginning with Pauline’s downfall in week 1, Chris as the anonymous PH in week 2 and Hurricane Toya in week 3, part of this being down in my opinion to the consistent changes in the PH process not allowing for the consistency needed for a good, aggressive storyarc.

Which of course brings us to the Girl Power housemates of this week. Yes it’s terribly unfair and incredibly desperate on behalf of production but it is in my eyes one of the best twists that they could have come up with at this point in the show. Three female housemates have already gone so far this series and thanks to the house dynamics two more of them (Danielle and Ashleigh) were being lined up to follow shortly afterwards, and even for the biggest of Big Brother diehards the idea of Helen being surrounded by eight largely dull male contestants is enough to make you reach for the remote control, so I am all for something which protects the show’s bigger characters and eliminates a poor contestant instead. My one worry with this however once again stems from Helen’s need for control, as I feel that her abrasive and aggressive presence is going to lead to her getting her way and making sure her lackeys remain safe from the wrath of the public, which is why the number of boys safe this week will be a crucial production decision. It should be logical, as three boys guarantees one of Helen’s group misses out, but after what happened with Toya I wouldn’t put my faith in the Channel 5 team.