Big promises for 2005

While queer Australia was left out in the cold last year on Big Brother, it seems we will be back when TV’s most famous house returns to centre stage on Sunday night on Network 10.

While all details of the Big Brother housemates are being kept top secret until Sunday night for the new season premiere, an insider on the show assured the Star this week that queer Australia will be well represented in Big Brother 2005.

The catchlines for this year’s Big Brother are assume nothing, expect anything and seriously single, and it seems the Big Brother house will be packed with enough talent to keep all areas of Network 10’s carefully controlled demographic happy.

Expect plenty of eye candy for all sexes, added our insider, who said Sunday night’s premiere show will explain the new rules of the latest incarnation of Big Brother.

While the 2004 series of Big Brother proved the phenomenon had lost some of its momentum, the grand finale was still one of the most watched programs of the year, peaking with a national audience of well over three million.

The 2004 season was also notable in that, for the first time ever, Big Brother did not have a queer housemate.

The rollcall of rainbow talent through the house since the reality TV phenomenon began back in Australia in 2001 includes Johnnie in series 1, Nathan and Sarah in series 2, and Claire and Jaime in the third Big Brother outing.

Last year’s weekend guest appearance of British transsexual beauty Miriam was a novelty trick that proved something a fizzer.

With full-time queers coming back, the inevitable debate about how the community is being represented can begin.

Meanwhile, The Amazing Race kicks off tonight on Seven, featuring gay couple Alex and Lynn and Patrick and Susan, a young gay man and his proud PFLAG mother.