In August 2022, as viewers tuned in to find out whether Ekin-Su and Davide would become the latest telegenic young couple to be crowned the winners of Love Island, viewers were briefly transported back to the 00s.

When ITV2 cut to another advert break, the icy synths of Paul Oakenfold and Andy Grey’s Big Brother theme rang out as the channel’s usual ident dissolved into that iconic logo, the all-seeing eye. The original reality TV juggernaut, it seemed, was back, gearing up for a rebooted season in 2023. Since then, casting calls have been released and two new hosts, AJ Odudu and Will Best, were confirmed earlier this week.

In some ways, dropping a Big Brother teaser into the Love Island finale made perfect sense. Love Island probably wouldn’t exist without the BB formula of throwing a bunch of contestants into a house rigged with cameras and seeing what chaos might ensue. Yet throwing the two shows together like this also served to highlight just how much the genre we now know as ‘reality TV’ has changed over the past two decades, which raises the question: nostalgia factor aside, can Big Brother actually work in 2023? 

When Big Brother first arrived on Channel 4 at the start of the new millennium, airing in the not-exactly-prime-time slot of 11pm, it was hailed as a unique social experiment. It also came with an irresistible whiff of controversy, thanks to the moral panic stirred up by previous editions of the show that had recently aired in mainland Europe. According to a BBC News report released just before the first episode of BBUK, the German version prompted politician Otto Schily to ask viewers to boycott the show if they “still cherish[ed] feeling for human dignity”.

Eleven contestants, reportedly chosen from over 40,000 applicants, piled into a purpose-built house in Bow, fitted out with cameras and microphones to capture every eye roll, throwaway comment and (in the case of show villain ‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman) attempt to rig the elimination vote. Unvarnished and unaware of just how many viewers were tuning in every night (by the time the series one final came around, 7.4 million were watching), the cast of ‘normal people’ made for irresistible TV like nothing previously seen on screen. Better still? Armed with a phone line and the bill payer’s permission, viewers could shape the outcome of the series by voting for their favourite contestant. It’s hard to believe now, but the concept was genuinely revolutionary back in the summer of 2000.

If you came of age in the early to mid-00s, Big Brother probably conjures up visions of tuning in to the grainy 24/7 live feed on E4 (when you probably should have been revising), of hot tub drama, of instantly memorable diary room moments (“Who IS she? Where did you FIND her?”) and of Davina McCall, doyenne of eviction night (“fancy another one?”). I distinctly recall monopolising the family VCR to capture one Big Brother finale while I went out to drink Smirnoff Ice at a friend’s house party. It was a different time. 

But after those heady first years, the format felt like a victim of its own success. As taking part became a surefire route to stardom (or at least temporary notoriety), Big Brother became less of a social experiment and more of a deliberate exercise in shocking the nation. High-concept twists were put in place. Secret houses were revealed. Producer ‘moles’ were introduced to shake things up.

Despite all this deliberate innovation, the format started to feel increasingly tired and exploitative. By the time the show decamped to Channel 5 in 2011, following poor ratings on C4, it was visibly fraying at the seams (although the Celebrity edition enjoyed a new lease of life with a fresh broadcaster; the 2016 series alone brought us Gemma Collins’s “frazzled hair” meltdown and the farcical “David’s dead?” saga). When Channel 5 pulled the plug in 2018, few mourned its loss.

As Big Brother floundered in its later years, reality TV was taking a distinct turn. Shows like The Only Way Is Essex and Made In Chelsea brought the concept of ‘scripted reality’ to UK shores (following in the footsteps of The Hills on the other side of the Atlantic) and reality TV’s production values soared. Social media, which hadn’t existed when BB was in its prime, gave viewers a chance to weigh in on the drama. And while Love Island started out as a scrappy ITV2 upstart, populated with average twenty-something singles looking for love and a nice jaunt to Majorca, the casting formula soon skewed towards toned personal trainers, genetically blessed models and British nepo babies. Quickly, it became a launch pad for proto-influencers seeking to boost their following with a few weeks in the sun.

Not wanting to jeopardise the prospect of a lucrative fashion deal or Instagram endorsements, contestants seemed to start playing it safe, which didn’t always make for gripping TV. And as more and more reality contestants speak out about the process, we became increasingly savvy to the editing techniques used to craft a so-called ‘villain edit’. Fans online started to chatter longingly about the supposedly more authentic days not just of Love Island, but of its Orwellian predecessor. Then came The Traitors, which became a massive word-of-mouth hit for the BBC last winter. ‘Faithfuls’ had to vie to put money in the prize pot, while a small cell of ‘traitors’ picked which contestant to eliminate every night, while doing their best to persuade everyone that they were absolutely trustworthy and “100% faithful”. The concept was brilliant, and so were host Claudia Winkleman’s chunky knit jumpers, but it was the diverse cast that felt seriously refreshing. None of them seemed like they’d come on TV with the express purpose of launching their personal brand.

When ITV finally announced its Big Brother reboot, the broadcaster seemed careful to distinguish it from its other reality behemoth. BB 3.0, it explained, would feature a cast of “carefully selected housemates from all walks of life” (ie not just camera-ready social media stars). This “refreshed, contemporary new series” would, according to ITV’s director of reality commissioning Paul Mortimer, “contain all the familiar format points that kept viewers engaged and entertained the first time round, but with a brand new look and some additional twists that speak to today’s audience”.

Discussing the reboot earlier this year, Kevin Lygo, ITV’s managing director of media and entertainment, doubled down on this nostalgia, telling media that “the key to Big Brother is to keep it like it was in its golden period – to have it more interesting, intelligent, upmarket, etc than the other reality TV shows”. It’s clear that ITV has its sights trained on BB’s early 00s heyday. But when we look back at that ‘golden period’, it’s important that we don’t do so through rose-tinted glasses.

Yes, Big Brother in its infancy made for brilliant viewing. But many of its most iconic moments were fuelled by booze (like the infamous series five ‘fight night’, when a series of rows culminated in violence and led to security guards entering the house), or born out of a claustrophobic, paranoid atmosphere. When we feel nostalgia for those days, we’re also perhaps feeling nostalgia for a time when we were less aware of the psychological impact that reality TV can have on its contestants – when we could consume it with less guilt. 

In recent years, Love Island has seriously tightened up its duty of care procedures. Contestants are now offered psychological support before and after their time in the villa; when they leave, they are given advice on how to manage their finances and training on how to deal with social media. During this year’s winter season, islanders’ social media accounts went dormant to “protect both the islanders and their families from the adverse effects of social media”. Alcohol consumption, too, has been limited on the show for years, with a strict ‘two drinks’ rule in place (on their dates, Islanders reportedly sip on booze-free ‘nosecco’).

Not only have production protocols changed, but our appetites have too. When Love Island 2021 contestant Faye Winter shouted at partner Teddy Soare in the wake of a ‘movie night’ challenge, Ofcom received nearly 25,000 complaints, marking a record for the show; the following year, the same challenge prompted 2,630 complaints about “alleged misogynistic behaviour and bullying behaviour”, making it the most complained about moment of 2023. Viewers, it seems, no longer have the stomachs to watch people in meltdown – perhaps because we’re more cognisant of both the conditions that might have prompted them to fly off the handle and the long-term ramifications of doing so on national TV.

Is it possible to create reality TV that is both entertaining and ethical? If ITV wants Big Brother’s comeback to be a triumphant one, that’s surely a question that they are grappling with right now. 

Images: Getty; ITV/Lifted Entertainment; BBC/Studio Lambert