Do You Have Time for Big Brother After Dark?
Do You Have Time to watch Big Brother After Dark???
by Mike Liebner
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Written on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007.
Big Brother After Dark is running each night from 9 PM to 12 PM PST on Showtoo (Showtime Too - two, err whatever it’s called). Showtime Too is available as a premium channel. I get it with my DIRECTV lineup of satellite channels, so I did not have to pay extra just to get Big Brother 8 Super Sized. |
What exactly is Big Brother After Dark?
It’s LIVE footage of the Big Brother 8 household shown exactly as it airs live and unedited and uncensored. What you see is really happening and the only editing is done when they switch cameras. For example one minute they may be by the hot tub catching the crew as they party. They may suddenly switch to a bedroom where a few cast members may be strategizing. It’s all live but they can obviously only show one thing at a time. So they jump from camera to camera catching the action as it unfolds.
Big Brother After Dark is worth watching, but it is mind boggling how much they’re dropping on us.
How much TV are you capable of watching??? How into Big Brother 8 are you????
If you’re obsessed or even consumed, maybe you’ll welcome the 21 hours of Big Brother 8 live footage showing each week on Showtime for Big Brother After Dark.
Because of the sheer volume of footage (and it’s live) it’s kind of mind numbing to watch. Here I am 13 days after the July 5th season premiere and I am simply overwhelmed by how much BB8 I have to watch if I want to. I mean hey - the regular show Big Brother 8 on CBS shows 3 new episodes each week and has already dropped 4 one hour episodes on us. That’s a fair amount of TV to watch considering the show has been on less than 2 weeks.
Add to that Big Brother After Dark and today on the 18th we already have 12 three hour blocks from Showtoo. One more coming tonight for a total of 13 episodes x 3 = 39 hours of BB8 action. Sure, I know the live internet feed goes 24 hours a day but for some reason I have never been compelled to watch that. After all it’s live only, right? They don’t record the action so we can watch it when we feel like it, right???
And that’s what’s pretty cool about Big Brother After Dark. Right now I have 12 three hour blocks of Big Brother After Dark recorded on Tivo (it’s stuffed to the gills). That’s insane! Who can watch that much???
At first - when it started getting recorded on Tivo I was afraid to watch it because I know that what Showtime is showing live with Big Brother After Dark may not have been shown yet on the regular show. And I’m not one of those types to revel in learning spoilers. I want to see the show exactly as the producers intended it to be seen.
As a result I have been afraid to watch Big Brother After Dark and only have recently begun watching. In fact, one night last week before the elimination ceremony on Thursday July 12th, I turned on my TV and before I could look away I saw Amber on the screen as Tivo was recording Big Brother After Dark. I tried as fast as I could to turn that off but it was too late. I saw Amber which meant they MUST have voted Carol off. That spoiled the real BB8 when I watched it as I knew Carol was getting the axe.
Since then I have been watching Big Brother After Dark starting with the first episode and it’s really interesting that by watching it I have a completely different experience watching Big Brother 8. The reason is because you see and hear all of the cast conspiring and strategizing so you know what is up.
The thing about BB8 regular version is that the producers very cleverly set up the show to push our buttons and only give a hint of what is really happening. For example in the case of Carol, just watching the first couple of 3 hour blocks I saw that the house had decided early on that Amber would stay and Carol would be evicted. In fact Carol knew this and was a sad sack and in fact was so bitter about being on Big Brother 8 knowing she’d be the first to go home that she became hostile with the cameras. Yes, Carol was whining and sulking and acting unreasonable because the cameras and the show were getting on her nerves. This made me feel different about Carol than the way I felt when I wrote of her last week and said she was my favorite. I have since changed my mind. She’s a brat and anyone that would act that bratty does not get my nod of approval. Sorry Carol. You’re a sore loser and a baby. A good looking one though :’>
Watching Carol self destruct was NOT good television and by watching the regular show Big Brother 8 you’d barely know she was pouting and acting so juvenile. In fact, the producers cleverly set up the show as being uncertain as to who would be evicted last Thursday in the live show.
The producers can easily do this because they have 24 hours of raw footage each day to go through and make up their story with clever editing. More footage than that if they have multiple cameras RECORDING simultaneously. Also - you may have noticed before eviction that cast members give reasons why they want each of the people to go. They play both sides and the producers use this to make it sketchy as to who will be voted for. They pick and choose what footage they will show and this heavily edited and interpreted version of real life turns into a story - one step closer to fiction than you’d ever believe possible if you never saw Big Brother After Dark.
So, is it worth watching Big Brother After Dark? Yes and no.
I do find it interesting to watch the cast in the 3 hour party time before bed each night. It’s fun to watch them unedited and raw. In some cases this is revealing. In other cases it reinforces what we may have felt.
Let me say that by watching the after hours footage I have now gotten a new appreciation of Jen and Joe. Both of them were on my hit list at first but now that I have seen some of their real interactions I think Jen is smarter than they show (she’s still a bitch though) and Joe is shrewd and smart too despite the overly emotional stuff they showed of him early on in regular BB8. Sure, he still is an asshole as what they showed was real, but now after seeing him stand up to Jen and speak his mind a few times I feel Joe is worth keeping around. That’s ironic since he just got evicted and is certain to be backdoored.
So, here it is Weds. July 18th and I’m all mixed up about what goes on when and which episodes of Big Brother After Dark are safe to watch. Unless you have those episodes on your hard drive it may be hard to understand what I am saying… You see the only episode of Big Brother 8 that is LIVE each week is the THURSDAY NIGHT eviction ceremony with Julie Chen. The Sunday and Tuesday episodes are taped and heavily edited. What they show in those 2 episodes are not necessarily in sequence as I am learning from having the Big Brother After Dark footage to watch.
I have a lot of catching up to do. I am only up to watching the footage from Monday July 9th (only 4 days into the live 3 hour broadcasts). At first I watched most of the footage but am now starting to do massive fast forwarding. I really want to catch up and get closer to what is going on now, but not at the expense of missing something good from the recordings.
So, right now I have 9 episodes of Big Brother After Dark that I have not yet watched. That’s insane! I think I will have to do some serious fast forwarding. Otherwise I’ll never get close to seeing current day stuff going on. What I am watching now still has Carol in the scene as she was not evicted yet. In fact I have 2 more episodes before she gets evicted. So - fast forward it must be.
So, should you watch Big Brother After Dark???
I can’t answer that for you.
If you can decide based on what I told you - go do it. Just keep in mind that it does flavor what you will see when you watch the real show. That may be good - or - it may be bad. It’s good in the sense that you know more than they show the masses and you have more back stories, but it also interferes with the great job of story telling that the producers pull off with that Big Brother 8 footage. If you can handle that - then go for it. But try to be careful like I am and not get caught watching things happen on Big Brother After Dark before they happen on the real show. It will make the real thing less fun to watch because if you know the outcome there is much less suspense.
If you have Showtime - give it a go - if not - consider ordering it - but at your own risk!
SirLinksAlot Big Brother 8 links
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Well I watch Big Brother after dark every night or tape it in case I am out. At first I was a little bored with all the whispering but as the weeks as have gone on I have really liked being on the know. It has helped me sorta mess Eric up as I am a fan of the 2Ds, it has helped me in the polls as I have gotten a better insight into the people what they are really all about and how their game play is going on. At this point I have also really come to like Zach and Jen more. They never let you see the contests for power of veto or food comps and even though I know ahead of time I enjoy the regular show which fills in the gaps. I have never subscribed to the live feed as between the shows on regular t.v. showtime and all the BB blogs I am still pretty up to date. I love how the plot thickens. And still you never know excatley what is going to happen. Just like I did not know Dustin had changed his vote back to Eric. So for me it has all been a lot of fun. I really think BB needs to find little daily things for all of them to do. Games or whatever. Beer pong gets somewhat boring.
Comment by lcarey1 — August 19, 2007 @ 3:03 pm