Big Brother US -vs- Big Brother UK

I have been a fan of Big Brother US since the first season, and I only began to watch Big Brother UK this current season. When I didn't have anything to compare the show to, I thought the US version was the best show. But now that I have seen the UK version I can see it is inferior.

The major difference between the BBUS and its UK counterpart is how the show is edited. BBUS is only broadcasted 3 days out of the week, and BBUK is on everyday (which includes spin off shows: Big Brother's Big Mouth and Big Brother's Little Brother). The UK version basically shows you the highlights of each day, where the US version condenses 2 to 3 days of footage for one airing. The show isn't linear because conversations at taken from each day and edited together as thought it is in chronological order

My major issue with BBUS is that they rely on the housemates' dairy room entries to narrate the story arc they develop. You never go more than two minutes without some diary room footage. And to top it all off, most of the footage is redundant. For example, someone could be visibly and vocally upset about being nominated for eviction and they would show diary room footage saying how they are upset because they are nominated. Another example, last night's episode had a golf task and the rules were explained in the beginning. But through out the whole golf task they had at least 5 people re-iterate the rules. Take a look:


The show treats you as though you suffer ADD and you can't remember what the hell is going on. Maybe they do it just in case some happens to flip the channel to the show you can to know exactly what is currently happening. I don't know ... but it is annoying.

BBUK give you a "fly on the wall" experience where you just what these people interact with one another without the need for story editing. Sometimes it is dull or repetative, but even the worst show on BBUK is better than BBUS.

Another thing I don't like about BBUS is that they basically made it Survivor in a house. In every other BB franchise, the viewers vote to decide who goes home. BBUS has a Head of Household (HOH) that chooses two people for nomination and the rest of the people vote for the person they want gone. There are some twists and turns (i.e Marcellas' eviction) ...


...but after a while it gets old. Mostly due to the fact the everyone is talking about strategy and not co-mingling with the other people.

And BBUS feels the need to do interviews with family and friends of the houseguests up for eviction during the live show. Why does that even matter? With all of the filler they show the leave out some juicy bits. From what I read online Erika suffered an injurying during a task but the show didn't even mention ... as of yet. I doubt they will, though.

Alright, I will end this rant here. If you haven't seen BBUK you can download them at UKNova, which is a site decicated to UK shows. Get a couple of episode of BBUK and hopefully you will see what I am refering to.

By the way, Julie "Chenbot" Chen is so not human ... but I love her anyway.