Calrissian.com : Big Brother Articles : Nadia Triumphs

Nadia Triumphs

The Big Brother 5 win for Nadia Almada was remarkable, especially considering her 'past life' - which many commentators had thought would make her too 'unusual' a contestant to capture the votes of the mainstream public. Yet Nadia won with 60% of the final week vote - testament to the fact that only a 'noticed' and dynamic housemate will usually be able to win BB.

The last few days in the house

Normally the final week in a BB series is relatively dull. With just a handful of housemates, viewing in the final week can be tedious and utterly dull with so little happening. Fortunately though, C4 had the sense to go for 5 housemates in the final week this series (they'd do even better with 6 housemates in my view). With the midweek eviction excitement, the last few days made for some superb 24/7 entertainment for devoted fans of the show.

Midweek Eviction and Housemate insanity !

The final 5 housemates were speculating throughout Wednesday of a possible midweek eviction, yet when it came to the evening, they were still surprised when it happened !

Stuart is called to the diary room whilst the group are dancing to some disco music. After a few minutes, the music is faded away.....only for the remaining 4 housemates to hear the live roar of the crowd as Stuart exits the house. Do the housemates then realise that Stuart has been booted ! Err no. Instead, the most bizarre thing happens...

Jason '..He's won it' ! Shell and Dan are soon yelling with joy to celebrate Stuart's win. Jason then speculates that it was the final night, "...5,4,3,2,1...", and that Stuart had just won. Huh ? Does the house really drive people this clinically insane ? What a bunch of loony toons they had become that night ! To think that they believed that not only had Stuart won, but they were 'left behind' in the house. Truly weird, it is as though none of them have watched a single highlights show of BB before.

I was hoping BB would do the really 'evil' thing of asking housemates to choose who they wanted to go, but no...the eviction night was instead as straighforward as they come. Even so, the way Stuart left the house was kinda good.

Stu-pid fails to make the final night

For Stuart to get just 134,337 votes - out of a total of 1.9 million was a truly dreadful performance. To think that he never received a single nomination during his entire stay ! Yet when it came to the final week vote, the public needed something to 'latch onto' and Stuart simply never provided anything of note. Should we blame Michelle's shadow effect for some of this ? I think we can blame Michelle partly for Stuart's premature exit from the house. Just reflect back to the early weeks of BB5, back to the days of Tiagra, when Stuart was more 'alive' and a far more dynamic housemate before Ms Bass got her talons stuck into him ;)

Between the time when Michelle left the house last Friday and Wednesday night, Stuart was appearing more buoyant and coherent in his speech style than he had been for many weeks. Was this because of his new found liberation away from his girlfriend Michelle ? Even if Stuart does care for her - which I believe he does, the change in Stuart's behaviour once Michelle was booted from the house, was clear to most diehard viewers.

Stuart: Received just 7% of the midweek vote.

Final Night

Voting data BB5: 2004

Nadia - 3,863,696
Jason - 1,335,246
Dan - 685,995
Shell - 347,051

Stuart - 134,337 : booted Wednesday night

Total week 10 votes : 6,366,325

as % of total final week votes....

Nadia : 60.7%
Jason : 21.0%
Dan : 10.8%
Shell : 5.5%
Stuart : 2.1%

As ever, with any statistical fact - even with something as simple as a percentage, things can be somewhat deceptive. Many claimed that Nadia had won with 74% of the vote, yet that really was not the case unless you believe that the only votes that count were those for the two final contestants. In actual fact, Nadia achieved 60.7% of all those votes cast since the previous Friday. Also note that BB4 winner won with just 1.9 million votes, compared to Nadia's 3.9 million - this typifies just how different BB5 was in popularity to last year's 'basic to basics'.

The 'wallpaper' housemates - Dan and Shell indeed got a relatively poor vote. Although Shell certainly was respectable compared to Steph of BB4 -who only achieved an abysmal 196,026 votes.

Mini Gallery

Also see : Gallery Section

The Baying Mob

The crowd for final night was pretty feisty, almost as much as when Becki was evicted during week 6. One of my personal highlights from final night was when Davina introduced the previous 9 housemates to the crowd. It was such a joy to see them all together again, and seemingly much happier to be outside of the house. Sadly though, Ms. Siddiki got seriously booed ! What the hell did Becki do to deserve this relentless rude attitude from the crowd? The great thing though was that Becki took it all in such great stride, smiling and waving at the 'common as muck' BB crowd (yeah, I do think they are all common) who were booing her so intensely.

Are the crowd representative of the UK Big Brother fan base ? Are these the same type of people who would queue up to watch a public hanging ? Some of them surely are, although from the interviews that Dermot and Davina have had with members of the crowd have shown...the ones that turn up to view an eviction are not entirely the most intelligent of people.

Stuart got a very positive reaction from 'the mob'

Housemate Assessments

Ψ Dan : He took his call to leave the house very well. I happen to believe Dan in his much stated view that he never wanted to have the 'title of BB winner on his CV'. Dan just comes across as someone who wanted some level of media exposure, and to experience something quite unique.

Dan was bordering on being a 'wallpaper' housemate at times. Often was the case that he would literally fade away from the public gaze for days at a time - Ahmed was indeed certainly more dynamic and active at times. However, Dan did capture a noticeable segment of the viewers...ending with 10.8% of the final week votes.

Goodbye Dan, can you please quit trying to mediate in so many arguments, sometimes you should just let people row !

Dan: ready to leave

Ψ Jason : As one of the infamous jungle cats, after Stuart had left the house, Jason must have seriously believed he had a great chance of winning. However, as soon as Davina said hello for the first eviction on Final night, Jason realised he was going to fall short of the win. It was quite clear from the audio that Jason heard the chants of "...Nadia! Nadia!...". There was never any crowd support for Jason...something that must have quite upset this Cat.

His reception from the crowd was indeed unique, in that he was the first runner-up who got booed ! The lack of Jason's attendance at the BB reunion was a shame - it would have been good to have seen all the Jungle Cats together. Although it is understandable that Jason has had enough of the BB experience, especially after the negative reception from the crowd.

Jason: Just checking...for one final time

Ψ Nadia : As winner of BB5, Nadia can be very proud of herself. Despite starting as one of the contestants likely to get booted early on, Nadia survived four evictions (not including the final week) to make it to the final night. Her previous life certainly captured the interest of many viewers, and has been one trigger factor in keeping her in the public eye. Yet there is more to Nadia than her past. As a housemate she made for some superb viewing. Her regular tizzy' fits about her lack of her beloved cigarettes are some of the funniest moments in BB history - and they are clearly genuine and spontaneous unlike some of the past 'classic moments' (I cite Kate and Jonny- BB3, two actors if ever there was).

As the only housemate in BB history to have blatantly whacked another housemate, and yet not be booted, Nadia is a true survivor. I'm very much against all such violent nastiness, yet it was an insane night in the house - one that C4/Endemol had been carefully scripting for months, and Nadia's behaviour that night can be forgiven.

You did damn good Nadia Almada, perhaps your finest moment was when you gave Jungle Cat Jason Cowan a mighty slap, and hopefully this clip will one day come to air, on the much desired BB5 DVD !

Nadia: Laidback and content......with her Cigarettes

Ψ Shell : Having been talking about winning the prize money since week 1, Ms. Money grabber was understandably disappointed to have finished in 4'th place. She left the house all seemingly happy and bouncy though. Shell had been telling almost every housemate who had been evicted since week'1 to "...smile smile smile..", and when it came to Shell leaving, she certainly smiled for the baying mob outside. I was never a fan of missy, but she can be commended for

Ironically, Shell recently revealed she has made a large chunk of money after doing a weekend photo shoot. Good for her I say, perhaps she can buy a few more acres of land to the family estate ;) ? I doubt Shell will understand why she didn't win BB5 - despite her blonde goddess looks and general 'nicey nice' attitude. Shell will probably count herself as merely unlucky, and not consider the fact that 'wallpaper' housemates NEVER win BB. Farewell Shell, you certainly have a damn sexy body, but you lack enough of a 'passionate personality' to interest the general public.

Packing up: Shell preparing to leave

In Closing

The win for Nadia is a good thing for Big Brother UK. BB needed a second female winner out of the five series so far. Nadia was a funny contestant to watch, a woman with a feisty attitude and an overall interesting character. The fact that there was still some doubt as to the eventual winner during final night, helped to make for a great end to what has surely been the best BB series ever.

A new countdown now begins......T- Minus 9 months (give or take), until the best UK Television show returns for it's sixth season. Let there be no doubt, Big Brother UK will be back for another few years - unless C4 slip into BB4 mode again (heaven forbid !). Can you imagine what sort of clowns will be on our screens next summer, maybe YOU would like to be amongst them? If you are going, you can sure of at least one thing, the queue's at next year's auditions are going to be immensely longer than they were this past Spring !

yours...

Calrissian : Considering an application for BB6 ;)