Hi there! Just one last link - a lot of people emailed me wanting to hear this, so here it is.... Tim Brunero and Aaron Darc (you might know him as The Eye) discuss the legacy of Big Brother Australia.

click here to listen 

"These are the dreams of ordinary men..."

Dragon

And that was that. With a finale every bit as contrived, absurd and lifeless as we'd come to expect, Big Brother, an eight year beast, finally fell to the ground, laid its bruised, beaten head upon the stage floor (where so many lambs had been slaughtered before it in the name of The Dream™), and closed its eyes. One shallow breath later, and it was dead.

What killed Big Brother? Was it the conservatives who feared it? Was it the intellectuals who despised it? Was it the demanding nature of the bogans who now grew tired of its thrills? Was it a greedy network who pushed it to become the very thing that would end it? Was it the media who raped it, and loathed it, in equal amounts? Was it Gen Y and their newfound means of attaining celebrity? Was it you and me? Was it a cockatoo?

Okay, so this is it. After 8 years of Big Brother, and 3 years of Eye On Big Brother, it all comes down to the Nanna, the Brickie and... well... Mr Nondescript.  To commemorate, lets do this live, like the "old days"...

7.00pm

"Sit back and enjoy the show," says Mr Brother. We'll try. And after the last group of Queensland bogans to ever hold their cardboard signs in the air count the event in, we're off. Cue memory lane montages, lots of ego stroking, and the crowning of this year's Numero Uno Bunny. 

Kyle looks every bit as psyched as you'd expect him to (not long, now, Kyle). "Don't forget you're voting to evict," he reminds us. "That's very important." And he's right. Every other year has seen the final vote come down to our love. But I find it quite fitting that they've done away with the pretenses and this whole thing comes down to who you hate. It always was really about the hate, after all. And this should, no doubt, secure the winner they're wanting: Terri.

Jackie: "What will you do with the money, if you win?"
Ben: "Probably change my identity, to escape the show..."

"And Alice," said Jackie, on last night's eviction spectacle, after a gushy few lines with Rory about how homesick he is; " What's the past week been like, for you?" Let's get down to the business of getting rid of that crazy chick who goes "psycho" over a treadmill, shall we?

"Good!" beamed Alice, maintaining her composure - her illusion - in the gaze of others, even though we'd just watched her be slowly brought undone by the show who wanted to keep both its stars in for the final Big Brother crowning, ever.

"And Travis," Jackie smiled. Ah, Travis. "You're the possimistic person in the house!" Jackie reminded us (as if we needed reminding - it seems many BB fans didn't). "Is anyone starting to get on your nerves?"

They knew the answer he would give, of course, and he gave it. "No," he beamed, maintaining his own illusions. "But I think I'm getting on other people's nerves. But I'm remaining possimistic!"

"It keeps me from being someone I'm not..."

Alice 

Last Monday, as the nation cheered or wept over the news that Big Brother had finally been laid to rest, there was a scene that, in the most wonderfully timed context, led me to say; "That is Big Brother." It was perfect. It was the show, it was the people who go on it, the society who craves it, the industry that makes it... all of it. It was a seemingly simple scene that I don't think too many people would have seen into. There she sat, poor Alice, thinking she had just been evicted - thinking she had lost. The horrid moment every housemate dreads was upon her: the moment she was deemed unworthy. She thought she was being placed in the flight simulator as a kind of holding bay, before her arrival on stage - those few brief minutes where the spotlight is on solely you, at the most horrible time. The emotion - the feelings of unworthiness - flooded her, the monster every true, young BB Modern is going on the show in order to escape, once and for all, standing above her with gnashing teeth. She went on there to win, like every single one of them does, and she thought, for a while, she may actually have more significance than she secretly grieved not having - that she was none of the things the mean people told her she was, when she was growing up. Poor Alice. Go on, Alice, fight it. Smile, though your heart is breaking. In a few minutes, the spotlight will be on you. You can't let them see your defeat - you mustn't let on how destroyed you feel. Do what you've no doubt done, all your life, Alice, when you become the pain: pretend you're not in any pain, at all. 

"To tell you the truth, I don't care."

Kyle Sandilands

For those who missed it, my "initial" thoughts on the axing are now below this post (and don't forget to vote on your feelings, in our new poll on the right). After this second axing article, I'm about to get back to watching the end of this show. No really, I am. In fact, I want to - it's important, in one way - because while we all get caught up in the bigger issues regarding its end - issues that surpass the five blissfully unaware housemates who will be, ironically, the last ones to know - we are, in part, accomodating the final fatal manipulation of this most manipulative phenomenon. On the one hand, who cares? It's over. But that was the point, after all, and it has amazed me to see everyone so blindly ignore the reality of why this news was dumped exactly when it was. 48 hours ago, Albert had made his final (we hope - but there's always the finale) appearance in our media, spilling the beans on how he and his wife had sat, backstage, at what would be their daughter's last minutes in the house, and watched the hosts assure the public they could change the votes in their final pennies.... sorry, I mean, minutes... even though a producer had already accidentally let it slip; "...When Brigette comes out." "Don't you mean, if she comes out?" asked Albert. "Yes," the producer laughed. But the producer was lying, of course. Two days later, out would come the news that all betting had been suspended, after it was discovered that the Big Brother producers were making maximum bets on the results. Fans were angry. The media picked up their bows and arrows, and prepared to aim. It was going to be a potentially brutal ending to this most brutal show. But then... well... the network changed the ending. Here we are, 24 hours later, and we are, once again, whipped into a frenzy that is nothing more than the final, well-timed scandal. This one was designed to make us all forget the real trouble that was finally brewing. It appears to have worked.