Pinoy Big Brother 8, officially called by its edition name, Pinoy Big Brother: Otso is the 8th season and 14th edition overall of Pinoy Big Brother.
Five separate editions called Batches aired continuously under Otso. The season revolved around the Otso Hanggang Dulo (Eight 'til the End) theme by introducing new game mechanics that involved Official Housemates and Wildcard Contestants (Star Dreamers) competing for their place to live in the Big Brother House.
Throughout the five-part season, it produced 58 official housemates and 71 contestants overall. The season premiered on November 10, 2018, and ended on August 4, 2019, and was on air for 268 days, making it the largest and longest Pinoy Big Brother season yet, and the third-longest season in the entire Big Brother franchise.
Background
Development
Pinoy Big Brother OTSO Teaser Coming Soon on ABS-CBN!
Pinoy Big Brother: Otso Announcement Teaser
On October 20, 2018, via ASAP, ABS-CBN officially announced the reality show's comeback by launching the season's teaser ad. The teaser showed a montage of the past seasons' iconic highlights and Big Winners' winning moments from Nene Tamayo to Maymay Entrata. Big Brother's voice was also heard at the end of the teaser by saying "Did you miss my voice?".
Logo Changes
The teaser also showed a montage of the series' past season logos before the new logo was unveiled, adopting the rebranded 2018 logo of the Big Brother franchise. The new logo featured a graphical eye and has a flat, simplistic, and minimalist design. To fit with the Pinoy Big Brother brand, the generic Big Brother logo was customized by having elements of the Philippine flag and by using the country's national colors. A house outline was also added for this season's logo.
According to bbspy, the new eye logo was intended to replace the branding of the international Big Brother franchises, with Pinoy Big Brother being the first franchise to adopt it. [1]
Casting
Star Hunt: The Grand Kapamilya Auditions
StarHunt The Kapamilya Grand Auditions
First Promotional Ad of Star Hunt Auditions
On March 29, 2018, ABS-CBN launched Star Hunt Grand Auditions. The network executives revealed via a presscon that the Grand Audition system was launched as a general casting event for all of the network's talent and reality competition series, describing it as a "one stop shop" type of casting process. [2] Cattle Call Auditions were held in various provinces in the Philippines as well as in some countries with a sizeable Filipino diaspora. The Star Hunt Auditions were separated into three categories; Kids, Teens, and Adults. [3]
Under Star Hunt, applicants called "Star Dreamers" had a diverse selection of shows to apply for, and they underwent various interactive audition rounds. Since Star Hunt is a general casting event, ABS-CBN's Star Hunt casting executives can transfer applicants to certain shows if they were deemed more suitable as contestants for another show. For instance, an applicant who failed to get in The Voice may be transferred to Pinoy Big Brother if their personality was suitable enough for the latter.
For this season, the entire cast was selected via Star Hunt Auditions. The Star Hunt eventually appeared in the season as a major twist, Camp Star Hunt, where selected Star Dreamers lived in a camp and fought to become official housemates.
The Hosts
Toni Gonzaga reprised her role as the show's main presenter, alongside Robi Domingo. For this season, Pinoy Big Brother winners Kim Chiu and Melisa Cantiveros joined as co-hosts, mainly hosting the season's afternoon recap companion show "Pinoy Big Brother Otso Gold". Toni's sister and former All In House Guest, Alex Gonzaga, also joined the season's roster of co-hosts, where she became the main host for the season's Camp Star Hunt. On January 6, 2019, Bianca Gonzalez made a late comeback as host after having her maternity leave. She joined hosting the afternoon companion program and live shows every weekend.
Pinoy Big Brotherhood
On November 8, 2018, past housemates from Season 1 to Lucky 7 attended the season's house blessing and homecoming event, along with the show's production staff and ABS-CBN's executive heads. During the event, all contestants that appeared in the series were officially named as part of the Pinoy Big Brotherhood. It was also revealed that the past housemates would be involved throughout the season.
During the Two-Night Season Premiere, some invited alumni from the past seasons appeared and participated in the live kick-off of the season. The involvement of the alumni housemates was present throughout the live launch; from the opening production to the house tour. The series' Big Winners also appeared and were involved in Batch 1's selection process for the first eight official housemates. During the season's Big Night finale, the past Big Four finalists made a special appearance during the announcement of winners.
Timeslot
On Weekdays, the season followed its permanent primetime slot airing at 10:15 PM while its companion show, Pinoy Big Brother Gold also aired in the series' usual timeslot in the afternoon block at 5:15 PM. On Weekends, the live episodes were changed throughout the duration of the season. It originally aired at 7:30PM during Batch 1. However, in order to give a timeslot to ABS-CBN's World of Dance Philippines after I Can See Your Voice ended, Pinoy Big Brother: Otso moved its timeslot to the usual 10:00 PM on Saturdays and 9:30 PM on Sundays.
The House
The house was first previewed on September 7, 2018 through Laurenti Dyogi, the show's executive head's vlog, Vlog#19. In the house, he revealed the unfinished house where he stated that the inner layout of the house was scrapped and reconstructed, with only the garden and activity area remained intact. It was the first time since Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up that the series would have a total reconstruction of the house's interior layout.
Designed by interior designers' Aisa Sta. Maria and Jen Soliman of J-Designs, the house for this season has a modern tropical interior design with earthy tones such as greens and browns which were the dominant colors in the house, notably in the living room and dining room. Native Tropical Filipino elements and aesthetics such as weave patterns and wood textures were also incorporated in the design. Vertical Garden, Marble and Wood Paneling also dominated the interior design creating a lush, eco-friendly vibe. For the first time since Double Up, the house layout was reconstructed. The bedrooms were now facing and have direct access to the Pool Area. The living, dining and kitchen area now has an open plan layout. A long hallway that leads to the Confession Room, Eviction Room and Storage Room was also present. The Storage Room now becomes the first room to be entered if one entered via Facade's foyer. The Garden and the Activity Area were the only rooms in the last floor plan that remained intact. Another change done in the house are the removal of one-way mirrors. This season introduced a new way of capturing the house where they would rely solely on CCTV cameras to capture the house.
House Pictures
The OTSO Format
Pinoy Big Brother: Otso introduced a new, never-before-seen format in the series' history. The special format divided the season into four batches and an ultimate batch. Batch 1 consisted of Teen housemates, Batch 2 consisted of Civilian Adult housemates, Batch 3 consisted of another set of Teens, and Batch 4 consisted of the second set of Civilian Adults. Each batch would have its own Big Four finalists and a Batch Winner. Once the first four batches ended, the Ultimate Batch would become the season's endgame where each of the first four batches' Big Four finalists would represent their batch as a team and compete against other batch teams for their rightful spots in the Big Night finale.
In addition to the Batch Format, the season also introduced new game mechanics that involved shortlisted applicants from Star Hunt Auditions, a.k.a. Star Dreamers, competing to become official housemates. The game mechanics followed the season's theme, "Otso Hanggang Dulo" (eng. Eight until the End).
For every batch, the game would begin with 16 Star Dreamers. Eight of them would become official housemates, while the other Eight would remain as Star Dreamers. The first eight official housemates would live in the Big Brother house, while the eight star dreamers would live in Camp Star Hunt. The Star Dreamers in Camp Star Hunt must face various challenges to prove their eligibility to cross over as official housemates. Once eligible, they could become official housemates through the weekly cross-over selections. The selected Star Dreamer could only cross over if one of the already official housemates got evicted. One Star Dreamer would replace an evictee as an official housemate every week. Consequently, for every Star Dreamer who crossed over to the Big Brother house, a new Star Dreamer would enter the Camp Star Hunt as their replacement. With this procedure, the game mechanics would maintain the 8-member household in both the Big Brother house and Camp Star Hunt until the batch's final week.
Production Changes
- Big Brother Rebrand Adoption: Pinoy Big Brother 8 became one of the first seasons to adopt changes in line with the 2018 rebranding of the Big Brother franchise. Aside from the logo, some changes also took place as per the rebranding of the international franchise.
- Technical Upgrade: According to Laurenti Dyogi's vlog, the house cameras increased and were now upgraded to HD cameras and additional GoPro cameras. A huge improvement was also made to the production's control room. According to Big Brother's Dutch consultants Anushka and Martijn, the production's upgrade was to enhance a new way of having a hands-on and dramatic storytelling.
- Mirrors removed: As a result of the camera upgrades, two-way mirrors and camera alleys inside the main house area were removed.
- 4 Batch Winners, One Ultimate Big Winner: In every batch, there will be a winner and at the end chapter of the series, these 4 batch winners will come back to continue their fight to become the season's ultimate Big Winner.
- Prize Money Doubled: This season featured a Php2,000,000 cash prize for the overall winner of the season dubbed as the Ultim8 Big Winner.
- Batch Winner Cash Prize: Each of the Batch Winners received a Php 100,000 cash prize separate from the overall winner's prize.
- Alumni Involvement: Throughout the season, alumni from the past seasons appeared as guests and some Big Winners were involved in the Housemate Selections.
- Two Houses: For the first time since Unlimited, there will be two houses used for this season to accommodate the season's twist.
- Five-Part Season: For the second time, in a similar manner to that in Pinoy Big Brother 7, this season was subdivided into parts in which the show named as Batches.
- Chronological Cycle: While the week order shows a continuous cycle throughout the season, the Day Cycle for this season states otherwise. Since the season consists of five separate chapters, every batch starts on Day 1 until the end of every batch. Once a batch ended, the day order would revert to Day 1 for the succeeding batch. The cycle would continue throughout the season.
- Changes to Nomination & Eviction Schedule: With the new format, the nominations and eviction were now done within every Sunday live episode, only to be separated by a commercial break as opposed to the one week gap between the two. This format was only used in Batch 1, the original format was brought back in Batch 2.
- Big Night Ranking Format: This batch introduced a new way of determining the season's Ultim8 Big Four and Ultim8 Big Winner. For the first time, the Viewer Votes are only 50% of the total percentage. The other 50% came from the Big Otso finalists' performance in the Ultim8 Challenge, where each gold bar the housemate gets corresponds to 1%. The finalists with the highest average scores advanced to the second night of the finale and had their votes reset. The viewers will then vote for the season's Ultim8 Big Winner.
OTSO Twists
- Eight 'til the End: Throughout each batch, the number of housemates inside the Big Brother House will always remain eight until the Batch Finale Week when the Final 8 housemates are formed. This twist ended on Batch 3 and didn't appear in Batch 4.
- One Out, One In: As the season's tagline says, eight until the end, there will be no deduction to the eight housemates as whenever a housemate leaves, a new one moves in. For every eviction night, one housemate from the Big Brother House will be voted out and be evicted. On the other hand, the evictee's spot will be taken by a Star Dreamer from Camp Star Hunt who will cross-over to the Big Brother House and become an Official Housemate, while a new Star Dreamer introduced on a live Sunday evening who will enter the Camp Star Hunt. This twist ended on Batch 3 and didn't appear in Batch 4.
- Camp Star Hunt: A special area called Camp Star Hunt was first introduced on Day 2, where the 8 Star Dreamers who failed the first Housemate Selection had lived. Throughout every batch, the residents of the camp must compete on weekly jobs to become eligible to be an official housemate. Every week, For more information, check out the Camp Star Hunt. The camp was closed after the "The Great C" twist occurred on Batch 3.
- Star Dreamers: At the premiere episode of every batch, 16 potential housemates officially called as "Star Dreamers" were introduced wherein they must undergo through the first Housemate Selection process in order to earn the "official housemate" status. Those who failed at the first Housemate Selections remained as Star Dreamers and moved into the Camp Star Hunt until they become eligible to be selected to cross-over to the Big Brother house. This twist ended on Batch 3 and did not appear on Batch 4.
- Official Housemates vs. Star Dreamers:' On the final housemate selection, the Big Brother House's official housemates and Camp Star Hunt's star dreamers must compete in a week-long challenge in order to gain an advantage over the other house. This challenge appeared in Batch 1 and Batch 2 only through Decemversus and Pinoy Big Battle respectively.
- Batch Winners: Each batch will have a batch winner and each batch winner will receive a P100,000 cash prize.
- The Golden Vault: The results for the Batch Winner for every batch were kept within the golden vault until all batches were formed. The Golden Vault was opened on the first day of the Ultim8 Batch.
- Ultim8 Batch: With the completion of the first four batches with its four batch winners, the batch winners re-entered the house with a secured slot in the Big Night finale. However, the non-winning Batch Big Four finalists re-entered as well and were teamed up to compete against other batches through a series of competitions in order to take the remaining four slots for the Big Night.
Otso Batches
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Trivia
- Pinoy Big Brother Otso is the first season internationally to adapt the official modernized and re-branded logo of the Big Brother franchise which now features a generic graphical eye [4].
- Although officially called as the eighth season. This series is the fourth season to feature a combined edition of Teens and Civilians.
- This is the first season of Pinoy Big Brother to have housemates chosen from a general casting process of ABS-CBN.
- The season is the first season to include a Filipino word in its title and logo.
- The word "Otso" (pronounced as "ocho" like in Spanish) is a Filipino word for "eight".
- This season is the longest season yet in Pinoy Big Brother, surpassing the preceding season, Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7 which had 235 days.
- This season is one of the seasons to be aired at an earlier timeslot on weekends, as the Weekend edition during the first teen batch airs at 7:30 PM, while earlier seasons had their earlier editions air later than 9:00 PM.
- After the first batch, the timeslot was moved to 10:00 PM on Saturdays, and 9:30 PM on Sundays to give way to World of Dance Philippines. This is due to I Can See Your Voice ending.
- The official social media hashtag for the season is #PBBOtso.
- Because of its' unique format, this is the season with the least complete number of housemates living inside one house, with only 8 housemates.
- Pinoy Big Brother 7's Celebrity Edition also had 8 housemates but one are pair housemates making them overall nine people living in the house.
- This season is the first ever season to have a house without any one-way mirror nor camera runs in the history of Pinoy Big Brother, and perhaps the entire Big Brother internationally. It solely relied on HD CCTV and Go Pro Cameras to capture the whole house.
- This season's house is the first house in Pinoy Big Brother history to be equipped with all HD cameras.
- The song Otso Na! (This is Eight!) sung by Toni Gonzaga and Alex Gonzaga was a song specially made for this season, and was used as the theme song for the Official Housemates. It can be downloaded in iTunes or be played in Spotify.
- Camp Star Hunt also had a theme song dedicated for the Star Dreamers, entitled Bituin (Star) sung by Pinoy Big Brother 7 winner, Maymay Entrata.
- The official Eviction song of this season is Before It Sinks In by Moira Dela Torre.
References
External Links
- ABS-CBN Official Site
- Pinoy Big Brother Official Site
- ABS-CBN Star Hunt Auditions
- iWant TV Official Digital Streaming
| Pinoy Seasons | ||
|---|---|---|
| Civilian | 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 | |
| Combined | 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 | |
| Celebrity | 1 · 2 | |
| Teen | 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 | |