The good and the bad side of Big brother, The Chase

 

The good, The bad, and The Chase

Last Sunday, the hearts of Nigerian viewers of the Big brother Africa show sunk when Melvin’s name was called out as evicted. Already, his compatriot, Beverly had already been evicted earlier on in the evening. It ended months of viewing and rooting for both Melvin and Beverly.

IK, who kicked off the show with a spectacular dance routine of his own, delivered the eviction news to Beverly and Melvin from the stage, before heading into the house to evict Elikem. 

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He left Dillish and Cleo in the house to ponder their fate, before delivered the stunning news that Cleo was the final housemate to be evicted from The Chase - meaning that Dillish had won season 8 of Africa’s biggest reality show.

Namibia’s Dillish emerged victorious after 91 days in the Big Brother house. She won more viewer votes than Beverley, Melvin, Elikem and Cleo on the final week, to scoop the $300 000 prize which is over N45m. This made Dillish third woman to win a season of Big Brother Africa.

She emerged on stage, tearful, to be greeted by her four fellow finalists and her fiance, Steven, who crowned her with a tiara. All the evicted housemates from throughout the season were on hand to wish the Namibian well, having been introduced to the crowd in pairs, earlier in the evening.

The stage was graced by some of the continent’s hottest performing artists throughout the show, with Nigeria’s Ice Prince performing “Aboki”, Ghanaian duo R2Bees rocking out “Life (Walahi)” and Ugandan rap superstar Keko dominating with “See Ya”. There was even time for evicted housemate Sulu to make a cameo with the mic, performing “Ruby Ruby”, featuring Salma. South African DJ Ganyani played out the show as the credits rolled and would keep the after party going into the small hours.

Some Nigerians did not wait to see the whole pizazz after Melvin and Beverly were evicted. Some switched off the television all together, while some took to the social media to register their displeasure. Some went as far as insinuating that Mnet rigged the show to get both Nigerians out of the house.

Popular actor, Segun Arinze even went on broadcasting messages saying Mnet only kept Melvin and Beverly in the house just to get Nigerians watching. In the end they kicked both of them out. Many other comments of similar weight were thrown around on the internet, but it was clear that these responses were not out of logic but sentiments.

Just as it stated in our write up ‘BBA who wins the chase’ last week, Dillish had more chance of winning than other housemates. Those who really watched the show can tell that she played the game very well. She made friends with those who were competition, she never got angry with anyone. When it came to nominations, she was as cunning as a fox, she used her head and not her heart. She never nominated anyone because they were not in good terms, she nominated those who were competition with her. All these coupled with her charming looks and easy going nature won the hearts of Africa.

The Big Brother show is not like a sporting game where can easily decide the winner. With Big brother, contestants need to be endearing to the viewers. Stealing their hearts is the only way to win votes. Another unknown about the show was, how the votes count. Many think the more votes you get the more chances you have to win. This is a wrong notion. Votes are counted and summed up country after country. So for example, No matter how many people vote for Melvin in Nigeria, all their votes still count as one. So, to campaign for Melvin, you have to go to every country to get support. If you campaign in one country, all that country’s vote will only amount to one vote. Nigerians loved Melvin but five other countries loved Dillish.

This is the official vote tally from Mnet; Angola voted for Dillish, Botswana voted for Cleo, Ghanaians voted for their own Elikem, while Kenya chose Dillish. Ethiopia is the only country Beverly won, while Malawi voted for Cleo. Namibia’s voted their hero, Dillish and as expected, Nigeria chose Melvin over Beverly. South Africans voted Cleo while Sierra Leone votes went to Elikem. Tanzania voted for Dillish, Uganda also Dillish, while Zambia chose Cleo. Zimbabweans voted for Elikem while the rest of Africa (whose voted equaled one) voted for Melvin. So in total, Dillish got five votes, Cleo got four, Eilkem got three, Melvin got two while Beverly got one vote.

On the whole, the just concluded Big Brother Africa was way above average and probably the best since inception. According to Mnet, it had more viewers and had more following on social media. Yet it was not all that smooth sailing. There were still some hiccups in the show.  The voting process for example, very few people knows how it works. There should be some education for viewers on how their votes are counted. Also, there should be breakdowns on votes within the country. For example, people should know how many people in Nigeria voted for each of the contestants.

Another glitch are the messages that are scrolled as the shoe airs. Many complain that the messages are never get on air, meanwhile there are some messages that appear multiple times. The messages also are not properly screened, if they are screened at all. Some obscene messages or comments find their way to people’s screens. Asides these, the show was a huge success. Though people batted their eyes at some lewd scenes like Beverly getting down with Angelo, that only increased viewership.

Despite a few flaws, Big brother Africa we can praise for creating a cross border platform for African talents. Many past winners and contestants of Big brother have gone ahead to become stars on TV, as musicians or actors.

Other characters that made the chase memorable

Hot room’s Tumi Morake

This year, Mnet added a 30 minutes comedy show to follow the weekly eviction show. It features South African comedian, Tumi Morake. She crack jokes about housemates and events in the house in general. The show itself was not really a winner. Somehow, the comedian does just not sound funny, and her accent is hard to follow. But she has a big figure and her gestures are sometimes funny.

Pebbles the fish

The fish is another new character in the house. It is a voice that comes from an aquarium, and claims to be one of the fish. It speaks with housemates at odd times and it crack jokes with them as well.

Ik

Ik has grown into the huge task of hosting Africa’s biggest entertainment event. He adds fun and excitement the weekly eviction show. He also is like a moderator who explains changes in the house and updates to viewers.

Emerald house

This is a house that never existed. It is more like a prank house. House mates in the Big brother house were made to believe that there was another house in the big brother house, and the housemates are kept hidden. The house mates did not believe until, Big Brother introduced a fake cast into the house.