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Finite and Infinite Games, by James P Carse
"A finite game is played for the purpose of winning; an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play"

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If it wasn't for all the reasons why everyone wants to go on it (Fame! Fortune! etc!) I'd love to go on the show -- to see how I'd do locked away with a dozen (? ten? however many it is) strangers, and with nothing for entertainment but funky, furry furniture and some chickens.

The whole "infinite games" concept is wonderfully enticing, even if the classical Carse version is overly-religious and the Big Brother version overly-everything.

All the analysis you ever see or hear of the Big Brother show focuses on the dozen-or-so people in the house, completely ignoring the other 99.9% of the show. But then again, you can't watch the other 99.9% sunbathing, so I guess that's inevitable The medium isn't advanced, subtle or dynamic enough to cope with a truly infinite game, nor the sources of revenue sophisticated enough to make such viable

But hey, :shrug: it's only a game show.

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by Incandenza
I get a little confused, but I thought Big Brother was at least ostensibly a game show. As such, don't the contestants have a reasonable expectation that the rules when they go in remain the rules throughout?

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Well, right at the start of pretty much every series they've said to the contestants that they should expect anything and that the rules could be changed at any minute without warning. So I guess not...

As for BB being too gimmicky, yes it is. And I'm speaking as a fan here so I know I'm coming from a different angle to you. But the first 2 series were great because there were no gimmicks (probably because the series itself was one big gimmick back then). They were kept nice and simple and it was just about the housemates being locked in the house and it was good. Series 3 suffered badly because of the rich-house/poor-house thing.

This series has been jam-packed with gimmicks "to make it more interesting", but they usually end up having the opposite effect. Lisa just should not have happened (I mean that literally, why was she born? Just kidding!). The only good bit was Jon going back into the house. But anyway, in my opinion although there have been lots of gimmicks this series, they haven't really affected it as much as the rich-house/poor-house thing, so this series hasn't been as bad as series 3.

Ramble over.... without really going anywhere.... oh well....

In all honesty I think they soon realised that this particular bunch of housemates were boring, the figures dropped so they added more gimmicks. I love Jon going back in, but for the rest of whats happened I don't. The whole idea of the show was that 12 people were locked away from everything else and how it affects them, this year they IMO have had much to much outside contact.

[BBFan]Tickles Back[/BBFan]

(Edited by Sange 12/07/2003 09:42)

Don't worry PoF - it made sense to me!

I've not really been watching it - I caught it for a couple of weeks whil;e at uni, but now I'm home, my interest has gone...I was getting irritated at all the gimmicks. I agree with PoF that the earlier series didn't need gimmicks as the show itself was the gimmick, and I would even say that you would *need* some kind of gimmick to keep the later series interesting -but I think they are taking it a little too far!

(on a side note; YAY Jon's back )

*hypocrite or what?!*



(Edited by head2head 12/07/2003 09:44)