My biggest thing with James going home was that the house is going to be real boring on BB Afterdark. Now all we are going to see is Natalie painting, Sheila sleeping, Sharon reading, Adam being gross and smoking, and Ryan smoking with him. Boring. At least with Josh and Chelsia, something exciting happens like a fight or a strip show...even if it was kind of weird.

I guess I am biased because I do not factor that in at all this season being I decided early on to forgo the feeds and afterdark.

This summer I am game and hopefully they have a much more diverse cast that I can enjoy (and would care to watch outside of the televised show.)

I don't like watching the feeds but afterdark can be exciting sometimes. I'm already game for a new season.

I find myself pulling against housmates who are heavily favored by the BB production staff. In BB8 I was not a Donato fan. The producer played a big part in editing the "reuniting father and daughter" angle. Thus endearing them to america who used eric S to help the donatos.

This season it is even more obviouis that the BB producers were pushing heavily for team pink. From there inaccurate portrayals of the people on that team to the multiple DR sessions where they push other HGs to team up with or trust team pink.

I don't see the heavy manipulation of the "Game" by BB to end in BB10 no matter how well it is cast

Don't forget that the Diary Room pushed everyone to save Eric (texting buck$gate) the week before they had Eric save Dick. That part of the argument is often lost on jeric fans.

I agree that the manipulation will not end anytime soon. The truth is that all reality shows do this to some extent, it is just that with Big Brother being so transparent (feeds) it is much harder to hide that fact.

If they actually spent more time making casting decisions it would pay off in the end product and they would have to spend less time trying to steer the ship to make a compelling show.

In the past I have railed against Real World types on Big Brother (plastic & pretty) but we are stuck with a serious nerd herd at this point in the game and I almost wish they went for more "Jen" clones to round out the houseguests. The biggest thing for me is the age of the cast. If you are going to have 14 hamsters, I think that you should weigh heavy toward youth but at the same time represent all the way through to 45 (maybe 8 in 20's, 4 in 30's, 2 in 40's.) The obvious Ageism in the latest rendition of the show left me a bit standoffish right at the start because I could not associate as clearly with the cast as I was able to in previous seasons because it was all kids (and Shelia.)

Lets hope some lessons were learned this winter and they get back to the formula that we love.

I wish in some ways they could bring it back to the fans, like the show was intended. The US installment is the only one where the fans don't decide who goes home. I think we've learned our lesson from the first season ( although I still would have wanted to keep Eddie and Josh in the house )

I don't have much faith in Allison Grodner and until they demote her I don't see things changing, only getting more outrageous.

I think it would be fun to have voting from the fans again. At the very least they could give us one vote. It would not matter most of the time, but when it did it could make things interesting.

I agree that things will not be changing with Queen Grodner at the helm, but I do expect a more "normal" cast this summer.This winter edition was an audible to save a strike ravaged network and they cut some corners and went with a younger, sexually liberated (as V1man likes to say) cast with this free shot at the ratings end zone. A penalty flag has been thrown by the fans, the pass was incomplete (with advertisers) and we will start over from the line of scrimmage in July.

Somehow I was expecting a baseball analogy if you were going to do one. Football is so over!

I don't expect to see a huge variety of ages this summer. Casting is still short and tight and the winning formula seems to be young and beautiful. I just wish they'd pick some with brains and strategic game play.