Pinoy Big Brother 8



Pinoy Big Brother 8, officially called as Pinoy Big Brother Otso eighth edition and 14th overall season of Pinoy Big Brother.

According to Director Laurenti Dyogi, the series will have another drastically new theme and gameplay as it will revolve around the eight and infinity concept all throughout, due to the large amount of exactly 55,373 auditionees who tried their luck to become a housemate.

The season's tagline is "Ang Otso, Magpapakatotoo Hanggang Dulo! (Eng. The eight will get real until the End!)" which hints towards the season's major twist.

This season is a multi-part season wherein the series is consisted of five separate editions dubbed as "Batches", aired continuously within the entire season run. The fifth and final batch is an All-Star edition where four winners from the first four batches would return to the game to determine the season's ultimate Big Winner.

Developments
On the final night of Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7, the hosts Toni Gonzaga, Bianca Gonzales and Robi Domingo hinted for a new upcoming season during the closing spiel of the show by saying It has been the longest and biggest season of Pinoy Big Brother, so far!.

Pinoy Big Brother's official Facebook page also posted a photo of the crew with the Season 7 housemates during the PBB Thanksgiving Party with a caption; ''On behalf of the people behind PBB, Thank you for all of your support. See you next season!''.

In September 2017, an alleged Season 8 casting auditions had spread on Facebook stating that there will be auditions on October 15th 2017, The ABS-CBN and Pinoy Big Brother management quickly denied such auditions and and condemned such fake accounts.

On March 28, 2018, Pinoy Big Brother hinted for a "BIG" announcement coming through their Twitter account.

PBB: Road to Season 8
On August 31, 2018, As part of the promotional teaser for this season, Pinoy Big Brother announced the PBB: Balikbahay (Back to the House) on Youtube. It will be a series of videos featuring memorable moments and highlights from the past 13 seasons from the very first season up to the 13th edition.

Teaser and Logo Reveal


On October 20, 2018, the first official teaser for the season was finally released. The teaser contained highlights from the past series and winning moments of all the Big Winners. It also featured Big Brother's voice at the end by saying "Did you miss my voice?". The teaser also featured a montage of the series' past season logos until the new one was revealed, introducing a new logo for the Pinoy Big Brother brand.

The season's official logo was revealed in the teaser. The new logo features a flat, simple and minimalist design. Unlike last season, the logo shifted back to a graphical eye while retaining the house element in the logo. The font changed to a variation of the font "Simplon" and the word "otso" which means "eight" in Filipino language was highlighted.

As stated on the British website BBSpy, the eye logo was officially announced to be the new official logo of the Big Brother franchise to be used on future Big Brother series around the world with this season being the first one to do so. To fit with the Pinoy Big Brother brand, the logo was customized where the eye features elements of the Philippine flag as well as the country's national colors.

The Hosts
As revealed on the second teaser trailer that premiered on October 28, 2018, Toni Gonzaga reprises her role as the show's main presenter for this season together with co-host, Robi Domingo. Mariel Rodriguez chose not to reprise her role due to busy schedule regarding her baby and hosting It's Showtime while Bianca Gonzalez, at that time, was still on maternity leave and recently gave birth to her second child.

As a result of Mariel Rodriguez and Bianca Gonzalez's absence, three new alumni joined in as co-hosts this season. Alex Gonzaga joins her sister in hosting the season, after her supposed first PBB hosting stint which turned out to be a set-up for her surprise entry as house guest in 2014. Big Winners Kim Chiu and Melisa Cantiveros who also co-hosted the docu-reality series "Star Hunt: Grand Audition Show" were also added to the set of hosts this year who were nicknamed as "Big Brother's Assistants" as said in the teaser trailer.

As of November 9th, Robi, Alex, Kim and Melisa will be hosting the afternoon companion show Pinoy Big Brother Otso Gold.

Gonzalez returned to the show on January 6, 2019 prior to the entry of the first batch of adult star dreamers after her maternity leave. She is currently seen every Sunday on the eviction night of this batch, and partially every weekdays on Pinoy Big Brother Otso Gold, and has hosted the companion show YouthTube.

House Blessing and Alumni Homecoming
On November 8th, 2018, two days prior to the live premiere, the annual house blessing was done together with the show's production staff, ABS-CBN's unit heads, other guests as well as some alumni from Season 1 to Lucky 7. An Alumni Homecoming took place in the newly-renovated Big Brother house and gathered together.

Star Hunt: The Grand Audition Show
On August 20, 2018, Star Hunt: The Grand Audition Show premiered on ABS-CBN. The show follows a reality-documentary series format, wherein every weekday from Mondays to Fridays, each episode features inspiring life stories of several auditionees of any age group and their journey throughout the four stages of auditions. The show would also reveal which certain auditionee would appear on which ABS-CBN show they would be chosen to appear.

The show is hosted by four Pinoy Big Brother alumni; Teen Edition 1 winner, Kim Chiu; Teen Edition Plus runner-up, Robi Domingo; Double Up winner, Melisa Cantiveros; and All In's Alex Gonzaga.

Two Night Kick-Off Premiere
The season launch was divided into two-parts to accommodate the season's twist. The male housemates were introduced in the first evening while the female housemates were to be introduced on the second night of the launch.

The Live Kick-Off took place infront of the Pinoy Big Brother House was attended by several former Pinoy Big Brother housemates who were now officially called as the Pinoy Big Brotherhood.

Big Brother's Alumni or the "Pinoy Big Brotherhood" had a bigger participation this season for the first time. They were tasked to certain roles for the premiere. Some alumni were tasked to give the viewers a house tour, some were tasked to host the Online Exclusive aired every commercial break in online livestream. All of the present alumni also participated in the Kick Off's opening production number. The show's presenters, the Gonzaga sisters Toni Gonzaga and Alex Gonzaga sang a new song for the season, entitled "Otso Na! (lit. It's finally Eight!) signifying the start of a new series.

Eight Big Winners also attended the live launch who played an important role as the Big Winner Council in the Housemate Selection twist.

The House
For more general information of the Pinoy Big Brother House, check out Big Brother House/Philippines.

On September 7, 2018, a sneak peak of the house renovation for this season was revealed by Director Laurenti Dyogi on his youtube vlog, Vlog#19. In the vlog entry, he revealed that for this season, the floor plan layout of the house will have a massive transformation from the past seasons and only the pool area remained noticeable.

It would be the first time since Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up that the series would have a total reconstruction of the house's interior layout.

Big Brother House - Modern Tropical
The house for this season has a modern tropical interior vibe and design with earthy tones such as greens and browns dominating the colors in the house, especially 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.

The floor plan was noticeably different and for the first time, 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 are still distinguishably intact.

One important noticeable difference of this house to a usual Big Brother house is that, for this house, they got rid of the one-way mirrors that usually surrounds the house. This time, they used a new way of capturing the house where they would rely solely on CCTV cameras to capture the house.

The house was designed by interior designers' Aisa Sta. Maria and Jen Soliman of J-Designs.

Camp Star Hunt
A twist about second house called "Camp Star Hunt" was revealed at the end of the second live premiere episode where those who failed to gain an official housemate status would stay while fighting their way to get into the Big Brother House and be an official housemate.

For more information about the Camp and its occupants, check out Camp Star Hunt.

Timeslot
The Weekday Primetime edition of the show airs at 10:15 PM on Weekdays after Halik. An afternoon edition titled Pinoy Big Brother: Otso Gold is aired at 5:15 PM after Los Bastardos.

The weekend edition was originally aired at 7:30 PM during the first teen batch, however, in order to give a timeslot to World of Dance Philippines after I Can See Your Voice ended, Pinoy Big Brother: Otso moved it's timeslot to 10:00 PM on Saturdays and 9:30 PM on Sundays.

Production Changes

 * Five-Part Season: For the second time, just like in Pinoy Big Brother 7, this season will be divided into parts, but with a very different gameplay to the previous series.
 * New Gameplay: As part of the series' theme and concept, this season will have a new way of playing the Big Brother game, with a new format in relation to the season's theme.
 * Alumni Involvement: For the first time, the alumni or former housemates will have larger involvement and larger part to play in throughout this season.
 * 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 to become the season's ultimate Big Winner.
 * New Theme Song: A new special theme song for the season was introduced live on the season premiere launch called "Otso Na! (lit. This is Eight!)".
 * Technical Upgrade: As revealed on 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. As a result of this upgrade, camera alleys inside the main house area were removed.
 * Two-Night Premiere: This season will have a two-night premiere event to accomodate the housemate selection twist. On the first night, the male housemates were introduced while the second night were the females.
 * Two Houses: Once again, there will be two houses used for this season to accomodate the season's twist.
 * 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.

OTSO Twists

 * Eight Housemates: Throughout each batch, the maximum number of housemates is eight. 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.


 * One Out, One In: For 8 weeks, in each eviction night, one housemate from the Big Brother House will be voted out and be evicted. On the otherhand, his/her 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.


 * Star Dreamers: On the launch night, 16 Potential Shortlist Housemates officially called as "Star Dreamers" were introduced on the live launch wherein they must undergo through the Housemate Selection twist in order to earn the "official housemate" status. Only 8 of these Star Dreamers would become an official housemate.


 * Camp Star Hunt: A special area called "Camp Star Hunt" was introduced on Day 2, where the 8 Star Dreamers who failed to become an official housemate would live, stay and fight for their place to get into the Big Brother House. They must prove their worth on becoming an official housemate. For more information, check out the Camp Star Hunt.


 * Ultim8 Batch: With the completion of the first four batches with its four batch winners, the batch winners will re-enter the house and. Together with one fan favorite housemate chosen by the viewers from each of the four batches, they will fight their way up in order to become the season's Ultim8 Big Winner.


 * Throwback Tasks & Challenges: Some of the challenges or tasks done in the past seasons would re-appear once more in this season.


 * Big Jump Challenge: As the end of every batch approaches, a Batch Big Four will be formed and the eligible official housemates will compete in the Big Jump wherein the winner will automatically get the 1st slot in the batch's Big Four.


 * The Golden Vault: Shortly after the voting in the 1st Batch Finale officially closed, it was revealed that the results will be announced in due time. The results for the Batch Winner for every batch will be kept within the golden vault until the right time comes in where they would all be revealed.

Batch 1 Twists

 * Batch 1 Live Housemate Selection: The first twist of this series is that, since only 8 housemates will enter the house per each batch, the potential shortlist housemates must undergo through a series of selection process right in front of a live audience in the premiere night. The processes are the following:
 * 88-Second Challenge: The first and second official housemate will be determined by the 88 Seconds Challenge. The winners from the two sets of Star Dreamers will earn the official housemate status.
 * Big Winners' Choice: 8 Big Winners, also called as "Council of 8" would sit on the jury panel and they must select one shortlist housemate. The shortlist housemate with the most votes from the panel would be an official housemate.
 * Viewer Votes: The viewers will be the ones who will determine who among the remaining unselected shortlisters will be an official housemate. The one with the most votes from the viewers would an the official housemate. This would make the number of housemates in the Big Brother to always revert back to 8, up until the 8th Week of each batch.


 * Back-to-Back Nominations and Eviction: A special change for this season is related to the show's format. Every week on the first teen batch, Nominations and Eviction happens on every Sunday evening, dubbed as the Big8ting Linggo week, separated only by a commercial break. Upon the entry of the first adult batch, the original weekend show format returned.


 * Big Celebr8ty Challenge: Every week on the first teen batch, the housemates would be paired up to compete for immunity. As part of their challenge, various celebrities would visit the house each week and participate to challenge the housemates' focus and presence of mind. The winning pair would receive immunity and will be safe from nominations. This was used in the first Teen batch of housemates and was aired always every Saturday.


 * Decemversus: On Week 5, the twist was introduced where the Official housemates and Star Dreamers will fight for their slots in the house throughout the week in a series of challenges. If the official housemates lost, two of them will be evicted and will be replaced by two Star Dreamers. If they won the challenge, only one of them will get evicted at the end of the week.


 * House Players: The Star Dreamers who failed to cross-over as official housemates together with Aljon Mendoza were assigned by Big Brother to become House Players where they must accomplish a series of tasks to test the Teen Housemates on who are the most deserving to be part of the Big Four. P10,000 cash reward is at stake for every task given to the house players and the total amount of reward that they collected would be divided for each of the 8 Star Dreamers.
 * Ultimate House Player: On Week 7, the House Players must vote among each other who must become the "Ultim8 House Player" and will go in the Big Brother House as a mole and must pretend that he/she is the latest official housemate in order to shake things up in the house to reveal who deserves the most to be the Batch Winner.


 * Eviction Competition: Coming back from the previous season, the Eviction Competition was brought back as an eviction process for nominated housemates Rhys Eugenio, Seth Fedelin and Karina Bautista on Day 54.

Batch 2 Twists

 * Two Camps: During the Batch 1 Finale, it was revealed that there are two separate camps named Camp A and Camp B for the Star Dreamers in this Batch. The main Camp that appeared in the 1st Batch was named Camp A, while the Activity Area was refurbished to be an open camping site named Camp B. After the first 8 Official Adult Housemates were selected on Day 60, the Camp B was closed and its remaining occupants moved to the main Camp.


 * All starts in Camp: A major change occurred in this batch wherein all contestants would enter the game as Star Dreamers unlike the first batch. This twist is the reason why this batch started with two camps to accommodate the first 16 Star Dreamers introduced where 8 would be chosen as Official Housemates via Housemate Selection process.


 * Batch 2 Housemate Selection: For this batch, the Housemate Selection will be determined by Big Brother himself.
 * Ultim8 Star Dreamer Challenge: To challenge the Star Dreamers and to see which among them deserves the first 8 slot, Big Brother gave them a special challenge.
 * Big Brother's Choice: Unlike the first batch where the viewers determine who becomes official housemates, this batch had Big Brother himself choosing which among the eligible Star Dreamer deserved to cross-over and become an Official Housemate.


 * Estranged Siblings: In a twist similar to Project DNA of Big Brother 5 (US), two estranged contestants entered the house without any knowledge who their long lost relative is.


 * Star Dreamer Dismissal: For the first time, a Star Dreamer from the Camp Star Hunt will be dismissed and will be fully eliminated from the series. The dismissal process will be determined by other Star Dreamers who will vote to save one of the two Star Dreamers up for dismissal.


 * 8 Weeks to 88 Days extension: The original 8 week duration of Batch 2 was officially extended to 88 Days or 12 weeks.


 * Double Eviction: For the 4th Eviction Night, two housemates would be evicted.


 * Face to Face Nominations: During Week 15, all of the housemates would nominate face-to-face to each other. However, the official nominees wouldn't be revealed on the same day as the Top 3 housemates who received the highest points were eventually appointed to be leaders for their team.
 * Nomination Competition: Right after the Face to Face Nominations, the rest of the housemates randomly picked a team they would belong to. These three teams would compete in a series of challenges throughout the week. Only 1 Team would be able to win victorious and safe while the two other teams will face the Double Eviction.

Housemate Selection History
The first 8 Official Housemates for every batch are determined by the Housemate Selection process. However, those who failed to get the first 8 official housemate slots still have a chance to become one if they were selected to cross-over from the Camp Star Hunt to replace the week's evictee.

Notable House Guests
Throughout the series, Big Brother would invite some celebrities, may it be local or international to visit the Big Brother House for various reasons, mostly for task-related purposes and for media promotions. The following are the series' notable visitors.

Big Celebr8ty Challenge
The Ligtask Challenge was brought back in the form of the Big Celebr8ty Challenge. Every Saturday, the housemates will compete in a challenge for an Immunity from the Nominations. Each week, there will be a celebrity guests that would be participating for certain roles in the challenge.

Big Jump Challenge
An important part of the Pinoy Big Brother Game, the housemates who were eligible or chose to compete for the Big Jump will have the chance to get a slot in the Big Four with the Big Jump Winner automatically securing the 1st slot of the Big Four slots.

Decemversus Challenge
On the fifth week of the 1st Batch, the Decemversus Challenge was revealed as a competition between the Official Housemates against the Star Dreamers of Camp Star Hunt. If the Official Housemates got defeated by the Camp Star Hunt dreamers, there would be a double eviction and two Star Dreamers would replace them instead. If the House wins against the Camp, only one housemate would be evicted and only one Star Dreamer would enter at the end of the week.

Eviction Competition
On 8th Week of Batch 1, after Rhys Eugenio, Karina Bautista and Seth Fedelin who refused to fight for the Big Jump failed a special second chance task that would save them from being nominated, Big Brother gave them a last straw by proceeding the eviction through an Eviction Competition.

Notable Punishments
Big Brother aims to make his housemates to value his commands, his house rules and one's self-discipline. He is very strict when it comes to rules so whenever a housemate violates a rule, he/she will receive a corresponding punishment.

Overall Season Trivia

 * Pinoy Big Brother Otso is the first ever season internationally to adapt the official modernized and re-branded logo of the Big Brother franchise which now features a generic graphical eye.
 * 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".
 * Basing on the season's format, this season will be 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 is expected to be switched back 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.

Batch 1

 * The Season's Batch 1, which is a Teen Edition is the first ever Teen Edition to feature teen housemates who were all born in the 2000s.
 * The Batch 1 produced an all-female Big Four, making it the very first time in Pinoy Big Brother history that the Big Four finalists were all females.
 * The Batch 1 Edition is technically the 7th Teen Edition to be aired in the series but since this edition was aired under a combined season, it's not regarded as such.
 * Batch 1's Teen Housemate Josh Worsley was born in 2005, the same year that Pinoy Big Brother started.

Batch 2

 * This is the first batch with housemates entering the house with a prior knowledge to the main format of the game, unlike in the first Batch where the theme and Camp Star Hunt remained secret for the original 8 Official Housemates who entered until on Week 5.
 * Batch 2 is the first batch where all contestants started in the Camp as Star Dreamers.
 * Batch 2 is the first batch to have 2 Camps for the Camp Star Hunt.
 * Mitch Talao becomes the first housemate to get married inside the Big Brother House.
 * Her wedding is possibly the first real-life LGBT wedding to be covered and aired on Philippine television.

The Ultimate Batch

 * The Ultimate Batch is the 2nd Edition to feature returning players from a previous edition, although the returning players were from the current season's past batch editions and not from the past seasons.
 * The Ultimate Batch follows an "All-Star" format similar to Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7's Dream Team Chapter, albeit with a different gameplay and mechanics.