Big Brother (British TV series) series 4

Did You Know?

• Big Brother 4 had more than 10,000 applicants.
• This was the last series to use home video auditions; from Big Brother 5, open auditions were used.
• A new show named Nominations Uncut was broadcast on E4 every Tuesday, showing housemates' nominations in full.

Promotion

This series was promoted as a 'Back to Basics' edition, following twists introduced in past series. The eye logo retained the previous year's shape but used a different art design: multi-coloured with black and white stripes beaming from the pupil. O2 sponsored the series for the last time, having sponsored since Big Brother 2 in 2001. To promote the series, a large 210ft hill figure of the eye logo was painted on White Horse Hill, Oxfordshire, above the Uffington White Horse. Created by seven circlemakers, it first appeared on 1 May 2003. Other geoglyph promotions included a hill figure near Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness, a crop circle in Southern England, and a depiction on a beach in Kidwelly, Wales.

House

The Big Brother house at Elstree Studios featured a completely new look. The living room was one-third smaller than in the previous series, with red and green couches and chairs. The kitchen contained only necessities such as an oven, fridge, and sink, with a yellow and white dining table beside it. The Diary Room had a soft pink background and a large blue chair. Two bedrooms were located beside one another for the first time. The garden included a chicken coop, returning from the first two series, providing eggs so housemates did not need to buy them. The garden also had a large seating area and a vegetable patch for growing plants and vegetables. This series introduced the Rewards Room, where winners of the weekly live task were invited and often given a party.

Nominations table

On Launch Night, all housemates nominated one fellow housemate based on first impressions; any who received a nomination automatically faced eviction. Week 4 was a double eviction: the three or more housemates with the most nominations faced the public vote, and the two with the most votes to evict left on Day 29. Cameron made his nominations from the Big Brother House in South Africa over the phone to Gaetano; none of his fellow housemates could nominate him.

As a new housemate, Lisa could not nominate and could not be nominated; Cameron, recently returned from South Africa, also could not be nominated but could nominate. Due to a bomb scare on Day 43, the Week 6 eviction was postponed to the following day, and Gos left to no crowd. In Week 7, Ray as house leader was the only one who could nominate, nominating three people. Jon could not nominate and could not be nominated. There were no nominations in the final week; the public voted for the winner.

Bomb scare

On Day 43, a routine security check led a sniffer dog to a suspicious package near the house, close to the stage where Davina McCall conducted eviction interviews. The package was thought to contain a bomb. Just before 8:00 PM, housemate Scott was told in the Diary Room that everyone must go to the boys' bedroom and stay put. Around 8:45 PM, Hertfordshire Constabulary ordered an evacuation.

Production staff and a camera crew entered the house, informed the housemates of the threat, and escorted them to a secure area on the edge of the studio complex, with tight security. At 9:35 PM, narrator Marcus Bentley announced that the control gallery had also been cleared, all filming stopped, and cameras shut off. Housemates in the secure area were not recorded but still had to obey show rules. Police set up a 100-metre cordon, keeping press and audience at a safe distance.

Bomb disposal experts performed a controlled explosion of the package around 10:00 PM, which turned out to be a false alarm. The all-clear came at midnight, and housemates were allowed back inside just before 1:00 AM on Day 44. Two live shows scheduled for 8:30 PM and 10:00 PM, including an eviction, were cancelled and replaced by an episode of Friends. The eviction took place on Day 44 without the usual outdoor crowd.