The Big Brother revival has proved a ratings success. (Photo: Big Brother Australia, Facebook)

Recap: Big Brother returns, week one

On Monday night, Australia watched a bunch of people from all walks of life enter a warehouse in Sydney. More than a million tuned in, a sign that despite its age the Big Brother format still has life in it yet. Our recap of the premiere episode is here. For a wrap of what happened in the rest of week one, read on – and come back every Friday for a weekly recap from Hatch’s BB guru Olivia Babb.

Tuesday night brought four new players sneaking into the house with a secret mission to not let any of the “OG” (original) housemates find out. It wasn’t the easiest task, as they were all asleep in another room and Dan’s snoring could keep a rave quiet.

They greeted the newbies with lacklustre hugs, avoiding the morning breath, and then went and bitched about them to each other.

Garth, one of the newbies, wins the ice challenge and shows he is the only one so far with half a brain for how the game should be played. He nominates Allan, for being annoying (IMO), Angela and Kieran. Poor Kieran, he does a walk around apology tour for being OTT at last night’s eviction and Allan spends the day laughing in third person how he isn’t going home,Kieran is.

Spoiler alert: Allan was evicted and he and himself were the only ones surprised.

Talia and the other sheep sit around the pool discussing how they’ve made connections with everyone and how great it is, perfect timing for BB to literally drop four more housemates in, in a cage. There must have been a dodgy warehouse door so they opted for the next best thing — an actual crane.

The surprises kept coming for the newbies when BB decided the original housemates could keep them locked up for as long as they wanted. For each hour, they earn $50 for their shopping. The scraps they’ve been living off aren’t cutting it and immediately everyone starts questioning if half a day is too much time to be stuck hung up in a cage in Sydney’s heat.

They do the kind thing and settle on just four hours. It takes five minutes for Sarah to tell everyone in the house that in her group audition interview she had met the pretty, tall brunette named Hannah and she hated her, so naturally they should too.

Talia jumps on the bandwagon and lights her pitchfork. It’s a bitch hunt and she’s out for anyone that threatens her position as Queen Bee.

To determine her status, Talia asks the caged animals – I mean housemates – to guess what she does for a living. She lives to tell everyone she is a tradie. They throw out doctor, physio, teacher.

Hannah puts her foot in it and asks “stripper?” Wrong move, Hannah.

Talia has the ammo now and she’s loaded her gun.

They earn a total of $150 for leaving the housemates in a cage for three hours. The money bought Ange her beloved tea. She celebrated in the Diary room, crying to BB about it.

S-Bong is the 42-year-old equivalent to Mr Miyagi; he can do literal push-ups on his toes and fingertips. Dan the failed AFL player is seeing red, which is surprising because in his playing days he couldn’t see the Sherrin football, which is also red.

https://www.facebook.com/bigbrotherau/posts/273635817376859

BB orders everyone to the basement again and it’s another psychical challenge. They must pair up and stand on a pizza-size disc until BB lets them move on. Talia wins again, this time in conjunction with her Hannah-hating partner Sarah.

No surprises who they nominate: Hannah, S Bong and Marissa.

BB announces the nominees and Marissa is 30 seconds from throwing down some of her old Rancan Sister moves. She is pissed off and starts yelling Sarah’s name all over the house. Sarah starts hysterically crying and Talia struts around the house telling anyone who will listen that she voted for Hannah because she’s a bitch. BB must have edited the times this happened as we’ve only seen Hannah offer a bathing suit to Talia, which she declined with a look of disgust.

Talia’s mean girl act is all Twitter could talk about

When it comes to eviction time, Sarah is having a major moment of regret, saying she thinks she didn’t give Hannah a chance. Marissa declares war on Talia and Sarah — and S-Bong is sent home, to Dan’s absolute delight.

Next weeks preview looks like things are about to get really heated and I, for one, am living for this season of Big Brother. Stay tuned.