I remember during BB3 when Up Late began, and it was just Mike sitting on a tiny set, with a single camera, talking to us occasionally but mainly showing us live streaming from the house. It had a very nice, indy-like feel to it. Last year, it was a lot less about the live streaming and a lot more about these stupid money-making games. It really began to bloat our screens. There was more of Mike talking and hyping all their SMS games and a lot less streaming of the house.

I still watch it, because at the end of the day we could at least look forward to getting one good conversation from the housemates uninterrupted by an ad break or Mike reminding us about the brainteasers or auction or whatever. And I know it won't be any different this year. But let's just say it drove me to watch the online streaming a fair bit more.

The housemates are clearly on edge in these final couple of weeks. Considering there are only four left, all of them had difficulty doing the nominations. Tim in particular lashed out at Big Brother. When BB tried to make Tim be more specific about his noms, Tim ranted about the fact that it was kind of hard, as he only had three HM's to choose from and had to nominate two. He went on to tell BB that he should have just put everyone up for eviction. I think BB should be applauded for actually deciding to air this, considering it does somewhat make BB look weaker.

Luckily for the HMs, this was the final nominations. Assuming the same pattern is followed as previous years, next week will see the final three all up, and of course from the final eviction Sunday week viewers will be voting for who they want to win.

For this week though, I think the viewers have been given the right choice, with Mel, Greg, and Ves all up. There is absolutely no chance Tim would be gone if he had been up. Mel is the favourite, even though she has really come out of her shell as of late, the editors (and hosts) for the shows have been pushing her as the really boring, under-the-radar one. I wouldn't be surprised if she sets a new record for the highest5 eviction percentage (this year's record is currently held by Kate at 56%, with the all-time record being held by Jo from 2003).

Even though there are only a handful of HMs left, these were surprisingly interesting noms to watch (or more specifically, Tim's were).

The Footy Show has changed a lot in recent years. You can see this if you watch "The First Decade" DVD that was released a couple of years ago. In its earlier years, the show was dominated by the news and discussion, as well as all the random skits and stuffing around. While that still happens today, there are other things that are also dominating the show and are detracting from the content.

I am of course talking about the moneymakers. I don’t mind the small ones, like Almost Football Legends, which encourages the viewer to send in a home video of an impressive (or simply amusing) moment from a community/suburban football match. I also didn’t mind last year’s “Mars-termind” competition, in on the popularity of Millionaire by having Eddie ask a contestant 20 difficult questions about their favourite team and footy in general. That was interesting to watch because it was directly related to football and meshed well with the content of the program.

What I am disliking the most at the moment is the “Screamers” segment. This is basically Idol with footballers. Actually, to be accurate, it doesn’t have to even be footballers who take part in this. On some occasions it’s been their girlfriends who took part. Each week they have two “AFL Personalities” perform a musical act, and the viewer votes via SMS for which one they want to see advance in the tournament-style competition.

What I hate is not only does this competition have nothing to do with football, but it occupies a good 7 minutes of the program that could (and should) be devoted to footy – be it another interview, more match/news discussion, or something else. I personally treat this whole segment as an extended ad break – when Eddie throws to the commercial and announces that Screamers is up next, I know that I can go off and do something else for 15 minutes, then come back in time for the football portion of the program.

The whole purpose of this review is basically just to rant about that, but it frustrates me because I can’t imagine there being a single viewer who wouldn’t prefer more football-related content in the place of this segment. It adds nothing to the show, and only seems to serve as a quick way to make some more money for the show by promoting another sponsor and getting people to make all those 55 cent SMS votes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this segment actually drives viewers away – I for one do come back and continue watching the episode once it’s over, but others may not be so kind.

I suppose we can be thankful that this competition is almost over (I think they’ve just had the semi finals), but I hesitantly wonder what great new concept that they are going to replace it with next year.

Thanks for reading my rant.

-- Will732, The Footy Show editor