TV and Movies

[gardenman]

And the BB season finally winds down tonight! From it's start in June to now, this has been the longest season of BB in US history. We had a one week break between seasons, but then we were right back at it again. Now it all ends for at least a month. Alison Grodner, the producer of BB talks about having a month to relax in an interview, so the rumor of a January BBOTT could be right, but we'll likely learn more at tonight's finale.

Yesterday saw the house guests wandering the house practicing what they wanted to say in their speeches in preparation of their live speeches to America. You didn't miss a lot if you missed the speeches. Kryssie's was basically, I'm loyal, I helped get Jason to the end as we had a final two deal, etc. (Jason had final two deals with half the house by the end of the first week though.) Jason pretty much said he came in handicapped being a vet and had to struggle and win POV's to survive. He took a few digs at Morgan and Kryssie too. Morgan basically said she was the sole survivor of her side of the house, Nobody really made a great case for themselves and with voting already open for eight hours by the time they'd spoken, few cared what they said.

After the speeches the house guests could finally relax for the first time all season. Everything they had to do was done. There were no more comps, ceremonies, or events other than the finale where all they have to do is look nice. BB annoyed them in the morning after waking them up by playing a saying yet again which had Morgan screaming, "Really, Big Brother? Why are you torturing us?" They've all spent hours memorizing all of those sayings for nothing. I suspect they'll still be able to recite those sayings a year from now, they all rehearsed them so much.

Today Morgan will put her makeup skills to the test on Kryssie, Jason and herself. After remaking all of them, the final three will gather together for the naming of the third place finisher who will then walk out and be interviewed by Julie. (We think. Julie is said to be there along with a live audience and all of the former house guests. We'll have to see what happens.) The third place finisher, barring  a massive miscalculation by the polls will be Kryssie. She's been nailing roughly two percent of the vote in most of the polls. The winner will be either Morgan or Jason who have been neck and neck in the polling. I expect Jason to win, but you never know. A Morgan win would make me very happy. 

They're planning for the finale to take an hour. I'm guessing it'll start with the typical season long recap showing each house guest getting the boot. Then we'll likely see the round table discussion of the evicted house guests each getting a question or two with Julie. Then Kryssie will get the boot. Then the winner will be announced and emerge triumphant. There will likely be a brief interview with the runner up and winner, then the show and season will end.

The unknown for fans right now is the question of "was BBOTT successful for CBS?" We don't know what their goal was going in. Was it to keep 50% of the BB live fed watchers? 70%? 90%? 10%? Did they want the audience to grow? Did they accomplish what they wanted to accomplish? Unlike a regular season where you can watch the ratings and get some idea of how successful the show is, we have no ratings here. CBS has all of the data and so far anyway, they haven't shared any of it. The fact that they didn't cancel it a few weeks in was a good sign. The amount of Twitter traffic BBOTT generated was impressive which implies a lot of people were watching. It also got good coverage in more mainstream publications with TVGuide online and The Hollywood Reporter covering it largely like the summer series. Will there be another BBOTT? If yes, when? The tea leaves indicate mid-January would likely be the earliest we'd see a new BBOTT, if we even see another one.

So this pretty much wraps up this year. Have a happy and safe holiday season and God willing, we'll be back whenever the next season of BB/BBOTT starts up again.

[CLHS68]

Thank you Gardenman for all the updates. I just did not enjoy BBOTT with the LNJ.So if it comes back I hope they make some changes.

How is your jpb hunt going? Please let us know also please let us know when more of your books come out.

[DrKelli]

Gman--I loved your recaps for BBOTT and I would hate to have to wait until summer for the next BB season.

I was also wondering how your job hunt was going, I saw the post about the job that didn't work out, so that wasn't the right one for you.   I do hope you get a great job soon!

[Lnorman]

Thank you, Gardenman! I've enjoyed your commentary on bbott very much.

 Here's my thoughts on what I've seen on the feeds:

Jason knows that he showed a vile side of his personality and he's now very worried that he's hated by the fans. Same for krissey. She's now thinking over the things she's said and feels that she's misrepresented herself. She said she's really not a mean person and doesn't hate anyone. Morgan has been nothing but sweet and kind to everyone. 

Maybe Jason did play the best game, but I don't like the way he played or the things he said and did.

Maybe  Krissey did puppeteer her way to the end, but she also made herself appear hateful and jealous of the girls.

Morgan has played a clean game. She made it to the end by winning when she needed to. She has shown herself to be a classy young lady.  I like her and that's why she's getting my votes. I hope she wins. 

[gardenman]

The job hunt is going absolutely no where at this time. I'm still looking and checking all of the listings every day and applying for anything I even have a chance at landing, but when you're 58 and somewhat disabled, it's a real challenge to land a new job. Everyone wants to hire the fresh young kids and I'm not one. The job I had lined up to start on the seventh was my first real job offer since January, then that fell through when their contracted hours came in well below where they thought they'd be.

The good news is I got the check for my Story Bundle book ("Sara X") which gave me enough cash on hand to survive December. I'm about to start selling stuff, starting with an old coin collection in the near future to try and eke out a bit longer. 

I took off fifteen years to help out my parents after my dad fell and broke his hip then my mother's dementia and strokes, and now all of my old contacts are pretty much gone. Fifteen years without working eats away at one's savings and things are not looking great, but God has a plan for me and if there's one thing I've learned, it's not to fight God's plan. Something will turn up. I've always been an oddly optimistic person and sooner or later things will turn around. (I'd prefer sooner though.) I've been hanging on by a thread since about March, so I've gotten good at it. Each time things looked absolutely hopeless, something's come along to tide me over a bit longer, so we'll see what happens. 

I thought I might have to sell everything in March, then the insurance check came through. Then June/July looked a bit dismal but a couple of thousand dollars popped up unexpectedly from an oil overpayment and a property tax refund. I wasn't sure I'd make it through November, but then the Story Bundle paid off. I just keep bouncing along and hoping for the best. We'll see what happens.

[kjw]

Thank you Gardenman for the updates everyday.  I've been reading them for years.  This was the first time I've gotten the feeds and it was interesting to see what you saw that I didn't catch.  You understand the game much better.   Are the feeds on with the Canada BB or other ones?  Do you watch them?

Looks like Morgan is giving Jason a run for his money but firmly believe BB has already written his check.  That's why they brought him on, to carry the show, so they will pay him for it.  Just my opinion though.  I think Kryssie will be in shock when she finds out how much America doesn't like her and how bad they thought she played, since she thinks she's one of the best to come thru the doors.  Can't wait for tonight!

[gardenman]

It should be a good show tonight. Shelby will be very interesting to see. She's now found out all the stuff that Kryssie and Jason did while she was in the house with them (the underarms on the pillows and more) and she seems a bit on the testy side about it all. She thought they were miserable human beings while she was living with them, but now that she knows all they said/did, her level of contempt has gone up a few stages higher. I suspect they'll have Shelby go through a metal detector before they let her near those two. Danielle might be wise to keep some distance from Shelby too. Shelby is a force to be reckoned with, and I don't think they appreciate how intense she can be. I suspect they'll find out how intense she can be tonight. 

It's going to be weird not having feeds after today. They've been on for so long this year, that they've become routine. At least now we get at least a month off. 

Someone asked about the BB Canada feeds, you can get them but you have to use a VPN (virtual private network) to do so. There's typically a smallish fee ($5-$10 per month)  to use a VPN, but then you can mask where you're from and pretend to be from Canada so you can see the feeds. I did it for several weeks last year, but they have so many feed blackouts, that I finally lost interest. You can also pretend to be from Great Britain if you like British shows and can often get away with streaming them through a VPN when you can't see them live here otherwise.

[SusieQ_2]

I saw some cute Shelby videos today - one on Alex's Twitter page where she did a little rap and showed a cute puppy, and another with Alex, Scott, Monte, and Cornbread being his usual self (sorry) where they were dancing the hallway of their hotel room. Links are below if anyone wants to see them. 

https://twitter.com/alexshay1?lang=en

https://twitter.com/shelbystockton1?lang=en

[gardenman]

I like this live finale. They all seem to be having fun. Not surprisingly, the majority of the evicted house guests voted for Morgan to win. Neeley, Danielle, Whitney, and Shane voted for Jason. Everyone else voted for Morgan. Justin didn't vote for anyone, but said he'd vote for all three.

And now we find out that Kryssie finished third. Not a surprise to anyone but Kryssie. Bye-bye Kryssie.

[gardenman]

And the winner of BBOTT is Morgan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!