Malayalee House

Malayalee House
Intertitle of Malayalee House, season 1.
Genre	Entertainment
Presented by	Revathi
Country of origin	India
Original language(s)	Malayalam
No. of seasons	01
No. of episodes	85
Release
Original network	Surya TV
Picture format	480i (SDTV)
Original release	5 May (2013-05-05) – 30 August 2013 (2013-08-30)

Malayalee House was a South Indian Malayalam reality TV show which was telecast on Surya TV. The South Indian Malayalam edition of Big Brother, the first season started airing on 5 May 2013 and ended on 30 August 2013. Revathi was the host for the show. Rahul Easwar was declared the winner of the first season. Sindhu Joy was declared first runner up and Thinkal Bhal second runner up.^[1]

Concept

Malayalee House is a reality show based on the original Dutch Big Brother format developed by John de Mol. A number of contestants (known as "residents") live in a purpose-built house and are isolated from the rest of the world. Each week, residents nominate one among them for eviction, and the residents who receives the most nominations will have to leave the house. The residents in Malayalee House are famous personalities in their respective fields. All the rooms in Malayalee house are locked in the beginning of the show. A room will be opened when a contestant gets evicted. The room to be opened after an eviction will be decided by the contestants through voting.

The House

The Malayalee House is built exclusively for the show at a Film Studio in Hyderabad owned by Actor Nagarjuna. The house is traditional, well-furnished and equipped but all the rooms remain closed in the beginning of the show. The open area at the center of the house (Nadumuttam) is the center place for all Malayalee house activities. There is a kitchen, prayer room, and several bedrooms in the house.The House has no TV connection, no phones, no Internet connection or clocks. Residents are overseen by 30 close circuit cameras 24x7. The house is installed with LCD displays/speakers through which instructions are given to the contestants. The cameras are even hidden behind mirrors. The contestants have already named all the cameras and the main camera is called "Kanthaari".

Rules

The show consists of 16 'residents' who live together with the main intention of creating a show out of the space/time provided to them. The lack of hard and fast rules facilitate an atmosphere of anarchy to make the show interesting to watch. The residents must evict the most unlikeable participant, from the option given to them by the Anchor, based on the rules set by the Anchor(these are done by moderators inter-alia considering the ratings and the response from viewers). Each contestant is compelled to pull others legs to survive. The rules to the contestants have never been told to the audience because of strict confidentiality etc. However, there are basic rules such as they are not supposed to tamper with any of the electronic equipment or any other thing in the House or violate the law of the land etc. They cannot leave the House premises unless they are evicted or due special reasons (e.g. medical). Some of the contestants may be 'planted' or 'Guests'. The audience is made to keep guessing as to who is acting, fake, original etc. to make the show interesting.

Initial episodes were boring as the production house clearly lacked direction, planning, dynamic scripting and strategising as the show unfolds. They immediately realized it and lifted themselves to the spirit of the game to save the show and make it somewhat interesting.

Publication

The main television coverage takes the form of a highlights programme that is aired on Surya TV at 8:00 PM (Mon-Fri). Everyday's episodes contain the main happenings of two days previously recorded program. The extra video footage that are not part of the daily episode are aired at 10:30 PM on the same day called Malayalee House -Kaanakazhchakal. The episodes are also uploaded to Surya TV YouTube channel.

Contestants

Housemate pattern

Eviction

Eviction by Inmates

• In 1st week Bindu Varapuzha was eliminated for 11 votes.
• In 2nd week Akkshita was evicted for 9 votes.
• In 3rd week However Harishankar Kalavoor who was a guest of this show is also eliminated due to health reasons.
• In 4th Week Santosh Pandit is eliminated by 6 votes

Up for Public Eviction the most times

Although the nominated inmates never went for Public Eviction, but the inmates and the public were made belief that there names were going for Public Voting. In fact only nomination of inmates were through them. Eviction was decided by the MH Team.

Eviction pattern

     Not in MH      Wild Card Entry      Evicted Week      Disqualified      In MH      Finalist      Winner

Eviction Twist & Tale

• Week 1 - Week 4: contestant had a poll to vote out other disliked contestant. Whoever got the maximum votes were evicted from that week.
• Week 3: Harisankar Kavaloor was eliminated for medical reasons by a team of specialist doctors in MH crew.
• Week 4: Santhosh Pandit was eliminated for 6 votes by other contestants
• Week 5: Public Voting begins this week. Narayanan Kutty was eliminated and becomes the first person to be eliminated by the Public Voting. Due to huge public support Santhosh Pandit makes a re-entry via wild card.
• Week 6: Chitra Iyer was eliminated.
• Week 7: Nomination are by playing a surprise game where each contestant is given a set of animal names which they had to match with other contestants. Those contestant whose names did not come in the list went for nomination. Sherrin Varghese enters MH as Planted Contestant.
• Week 8: There was no eviction in this week. Although Rosin Jolly was taken out of MH for some time to make MH contestants believe she is eliminated. But she walks in with a cake after few hours, much to the disdain of the general public.
• Week 10: For the first time Saasha is not nominated for eviction for week 10.
• Week 11: Rahul nominates three contestant for elimination (Asha Gopinathan, Santhosh Pandit & Sherrin Varghese) by winning a game of hiding a gem. Thinkal Bhal was automatically nominated for losing the game. Sneha Nambiar is asked to leave the house for the violation of MH rules. Santhosh Pandit is evicted from MH this week.
• Week 12: No eviction this week as Ramadan gift for nominees.
• Week 13: Sherrin is Evicted. Contestant plays game to win Renault Duster SUV.
• Week 14: Rahul wins Renault Duster SUV. Akshita makes a re-entry as Guest. No Eviction
• Week 15: All the inmates are nominated for Week 16 elimination. Sandeep Menon makes a guest appearance.
• Week 16: New competition is held for Tata Nano Car. Ridhi makes a guest appearance in the house. G S Pradeep is Evicted.Sindhu Joy wins the Nano Car Task
• Week 17: MH completed 100 days on 13 August 2013.

Inmates voted against

Guests

The Malayalee House house has witnessed temporary stays of many famous personalities. Names who appeared on the show as houseguests are listed below.

• Riddhi Barua
• Sreekandan Nair (3rd Week)
• Kaviyoor Ponnamma (5th Week)
• Kids - Chelsa & Melissa (Sojan's kids), Soupranika & Suryanarayanan (Pradeep's kids) & Tarun and Varun (Sneha's kids)(6th Week)
• Soumini (wife of GS Pradeep) visits her husband on their 16th wedding anniversary. Code language was used between them. The code language called 'sa language' can be decoded if you remove the 'sa' from each word and join them together. E.g. for the word 'Rahul', GS used 'sara' - 'sahul'. He also asked "Chance Strongelle" (is my chance strong?). In turn his wife advised him "appi chettan cheyandayirinu" (something GS was not supposed to carry out). " arem kuttam parayaruthu" Basically GS used the code language to know the status of himself in MH.
• Kadhal Sandhya (8th Week)
• Sathyasheelan & Lekshmiyamma from Alappuzha. Old couple from real life.
• Pavithra Kurup (Neena's Daughter)
• Dr.Savitha Menon(Saasha's Mother)
• Dimpal Bhal (Thinkal's Sister) (13th Week)
• Akshitha (14th week)
• Sandeep Menon (15th Week)
• Riddhi Barua (16th Week)
• G.S. Pradeep (17th Week)

Youtube hits

From the initial episodes itself, the program received very good viewership (approximately 0.25 - 0.3 million per episode) in the Surya TV YouTube Channel.^[2] However, the view count hit below 0.2 million from approximately days 40-50 (Eviction week of Chitra Iyer). Later, though for a brief period, the view count could hit above 0.2 million. From approximately days 70-80 (Eviction week of Santhosh Pandit and disqualification of Sneha Nambiar) the viewership again fell below 0.2 million.

Meddling and Interference by Hosts

Contestants allowed contact with outside world

Even though the 2nd title of Malayali house indicates there is no connection to the outerworld Pradeep's wife came into Malayali House on 19 June 2013. The episode shows G S Pradeep and his wife used a secret code Language(sa language) to communicate with each other about the outside world and the viewer pulse. Also Pradeep's kids Souparnika & Suryanarayanan; Sojan's kids Chelsa & Crisa ; Sneha's kids Varun & Tarun was in Malayali house on 6th week. Later weeks more guest were introduced in the house including Neena's daughter Pavithra. Rahul and Sneha wins a contest in MH and were allowed to go out of MH to a mall to view Movie. Where Sneha contacts outside world using stranger's phone. She does this in a Restroom where there is no crew members. Later she is disqualified for breaking the rule. Thinkal's sister and Sasha's mother are also allowed in the house as guests.

Eviction, Wild card re-entry & re-Eviction of Santhosh Pandit

The hosts of the show decided to invite public poll for eviction of housemates from the 5th week onwards. But one of the housemates Santhosh Pandit, who was having the maximum audience support was allowed to evicted in the 4th week by the housemates. The audience of the show widely claim that this was a planned move by hosts of the show, to evict Santhosh Pandit. The public support suggested that Santhosh Pandit is perhaps better off than some of the other participants who have been exposed through the show.^[3] Later the makers of the show admitted that evicting Santhosh was a mistake.^[4] The makers of the show surprised the audience and also the housemates by bring back Santhosh Pandit as a wildcard entry to house at the end of the 5th week in a dramatic way. Santhosh Pandit was introduced back, by lowering him from the top with the help of a crane.^[5] Santosh Pandit was evicted again on 11th week by public voting.

TV display to MH inmates

As a consequence of "selected" visuals and conversations being displayed by the host, inmates are often tempted to take biased or polarized stands. This include, e.g., displaying a selected conversation between two inmates gossiping about another inmate in his/her absence.

Criticism

It is possible that the show Malayali House, loosely modeled on shows like Big Brother and Bigg Boss, is gaining in TRPs. But what is also showing a sharp rise is the number of objections against it. While women’s organisations find the content offensive, social media is full of criticism about its tastelessness^[6] Women Commission of Kerala came forward opposing Surya TV’s realty show Malayali House. The show was highly criticized in social networking sites. Commission has also asked explanation from Surya TV on this matter. The commission discussed about this matter in meeting at Thiruvananthapuram. The commission came up with the outcome that some participants are degrading female participants in the show. Earlier, Democratic Women’s Association and DYFI has opposed this programme and asked to put ban on it.^[7] "All the women are prostitutes and the men skirtchasers," says one transliterated comment by a young looking thumbnail-man on one of the MH clips. "Oh, what shame. Please remove the word Malayalee from the title," says a woman. These comments and media reports suggest abject disgust for MH, being expressed by a certain section of dominant Malayali sociality.^[8]

Controversies

Rigged Evictions

There is an outcry in internet over the eviction of Dalu Krishnadas, Sandeep Menon and Santhosh Pandit. During the nomination of Dalu, Facebook poll in Surya TV channel showed maximum votes of eviction to Neena Kurup and Thingal Bhal. In spite of receiving humongous votes for eviction, Neena was not evicted and Dalu was shown going out of the house. Sandeep Menon suffered similar fate. During the eviction of Santhosh Pandit second time, following votes were received by the contestant for eviction in Facebook. Santhosh Pandit(199), Sherrin Varghese(780), Thinkal Bhal(270), Asha Gopinathan(227). In-spite receiving the lowest votes, Santhosh Pandit was asked to leave the house.There was outcry in Facebook and YouTube channel about the eviction. It became very evident the show tries to protect some contestants by the 12th week. Twice elimination was canceled when Rosin Jolly was nominated, much to the disdain of the public. The eviction looked as if altering the results in favor of those contestant who shouted and created drama for the show. Those contestants who were calm and quiet were evicted one after another, as they didn't provide any scoop for the show and some of them were really "boring" and "dull" by remaining "calm"; the only exception was Dalu Krishnadas who was calm yet contributing a lot to the show.

Misleading the Viewers

MH program is already taped 2 weeks before it is aired. There is lag of two weeks for any program aired in TV and when it actually happens. E.g. the MH program completed 100 days on 13 Aug 2013 but it was aired only on 26 Aug 2013. In-spite lagging for two weeks, MH had earlier listed people for eviction in Facebook and through SMS. But these votes had no effect on the eviction because the program was already taped and the contestant eliminated from the MH before the public voting happened.

MH brought Sherrin Varghese as planted guest. The viewers were never informed of this proceeding. Sherrin Varghese was kept in all the eviction nomination, even though MH had no intention of removing him through Public voting. This misguided the viewers in voting. Many people voted against him instead of real nominees and back of this MH removed the contestant they liked.

Bigg Boss Copyright Infringement

A case was filed by Endemol Group, the makers of the popular reality TV show Bigg Boss against the Malayalee House makers (Sun TV and Vedartha Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.) for copying the production format of the popular Bigg Boss show. Endemol Group filed a suit in Bombay High Court against Sun TV Network Ltd. and four others seeking injunction to restrain them from exploiting, telecasting, publicizing or continuing to telecast the reality show "Malayalee House" which is allegedly infringing the Group's copyright in the production format of "Bigg Boss".^[9]

See also

• Big Brother (TV series)
• Bigg Boss

References

External links

• Sun Network Malyalee House Webpage
• Malaylee House Facebook Page
• Malaylee House YouTube channel
• https://www.academia.edu/12900873/The_house_of_ill_repute_Malayalee_House_reality_television_and_morality_debates_in_contemporary_Kerala - Essay on Malayalee House
• http://sarai.net/gossip-and-hybrid-televisuality-of-malayalee-house/