Pinoy Big Brother: Otso

The eighth season of the reality game show Pinoy Big Brother, subtitled Otso (Spanish for eight), aired on ABS-CBN for 268 days from November 10, 2018 to August 4, 2019.
Four batches of housemates, two civilian adults and two teenager groups, compete to be the winner of their respective batches. By the fifth batch, all finalists from each batch return to compete for eight slots in the finale. The show concluded with Yamyam Gucong being declared as the winner of the whole season.
This was the longest season of Pinoy Big Brother yet, having reached 268 days—surpassing Lucky 7 by 32. This season is the third longest season of Big Brother worldwide and also had the second highest number of housemates in a season (58), trailing Big Brother Germany’s fifth and sixth seasons, which lasted for 365 and 363 days respectively, and had 59 housemates each.
Auditions for this season has been part of Star Hunt: The Grand Kapamilya Auditions, ABS-CBN's auditions caravan, which started on April 20, 2018. 55,373 auditionees took part, auditioning for other upcoming reality shows like The Voice of the Philippines, Pilipinas Got Talent, and World of Dance Philippines. Several potential housemates have been featured in Star Hunt's companion show.
Pinoy Big Brother: Otso Gold returned as a companion show on November 12, 2018, as part of the Kapamilya Gold block. A house livestream also aired on iWant and TFC Online. An additional online companion show called PBB Bring 8 On!, which streamed simultaneously with the primetime TV program, also aired live via show's various social media accounts; it was hosted by Dawn Chang of Pinoy Big Brother: 737, Fifth Solomon of Pinoy Big Brother: All In, and Pamu Pamorada of Pinoy Big Brother: Unlimited.
An online show, YouthTube, which was hosted by Robi Domingo and Bianca Gonzales commenced on November 22, 2018. It talked about the different issues that arose in the house, particularly in the first batch of teen housemates.
The Otso in the season title is a Filipino language rendering of the Spanish word ocho ("eight"), indicating the season number. This season saw another logo change from the previous season: an eye logo using motifs from the Philippine flag (from which producers customized the new generic eye logo of Big Brother), atop the show's title and enclosed by an outline of a house. The adaption of the new generic franchise logo is the first among all the franchises worldwide.
The weekday primetime program of the show aired at 10:00 p.m. on weekdays after the last primetime teleserye in the primetime program block of the network. An afternoon edition titled Pinoy Big Brother: Otso Gold aired at 5:15 p.m. after Los Bastardos.
The weekend primetime program was originally aired at 7:30 p.m. during the batch 1 teens; however, after the first season of I Can See Your Voice ended, Pinoy Big Brother: Otso moved its timeslot to 10:00 p.m. on Saturdays and 9:30 p.m. on Sundays in order to give the timeslot to World of Dance Philippines since the batch 2 adults.
This season showed a major revamp in the house layout. On September 7, 2018, Director Laurenti Dyogi made a vlog about the reconstruction of the house. The new house design was unveiled on November 7, 2018, during its house blessing. Several housemates from previous seasons have visited the house and have taken pictures for their social media accounts. Official house photos were released on their Facebook page on November 10, 2018. The management opened its doors to 888 visitors to tour the House for eight minutes on November 10, 2018.
From his livestream, Dyogi has stated that the show has upgraded to using HD PTZ cameras, making Otso the first season to fully broadcast in high definition and in 16:9 aspect ratio (Lucky 7's Vietnam leg was shown in 16:9, but the show reverted to 4:3 upon the housemates' return to the Philippines. The one-way mirror system, used in earlier seasons for cameramen to capture events in the house, was no longer present.
Toni Gonzaga and Robi Domingo reprised their roles as hosts. Alex Gonzaga, who hosted All In, returned to the show together with former winners Kim Chiu and Melai Cantiveros as new hosts. Bianca Gonzalez reprised her role as host upon the entry of Batch 2 Star Dreamers.
As revealed during the announcement of the batch winners, each batch winner will receive ₱100,000. On the other hand, the ultimate winner would take home ₱2,000,000 (₱1,000,000 from Miniso and ₱1,000,000 from the show), a condominium unit Suntrust Asmara from Suntrust Properties, Inc., a water refilling station business package worth ₱800,000, and a travel package worth ₱300,000 from Jag Jeans. The runner-up would receive ₱500,000 and a condominium unit from Suntrust Properties, Inc; the third and fourth placers would receive ₱300,000 and ₱200,000, respectively. ₱100,000 would be given to the fifth to eighth placers. Yen Quirante won a condominium unit from Suntrust Properties, Inc. during the third Pinoy Big Batch-Bakan.
Since its official announcement on October 20, 2018, much information about this season has not been made public until November 9, 2018, when Dyogi discussed its details on a livestream.
Four batches of housemates, civilians, and teenagers, came into the House in alternating order, starting with the teens. Each batch would comprise only eight official housemates. At the beginning of each batch's stay, 16 shortlisted contestants, known in the show as Star Dreamers, would take part in different tasks to determine who will be given housemate status, until eight are chosen. Star Dreamers who were unsuccessful in getting a spot in the House are sent to Camp Star Hunt, where they would be given tasks to determine among them the next person to be an official housemate. Every eviction, as one official housemate goes, a new one from the Camp takes their place. A new Star Dreamer will be introduced to the Camp, returning the number of housemates and Star Dreamers to eight. This is repeated for 6 weeks. By the seventh week, housemates would be participating in challenges or face the public vote, as part of the eviction process, until four are left. The public, then, decides, from the four, who they want to win for that batch. By the end of 8 weeks, the current batch leaves the House, and a batch winner is crowned, although the results were concealed until three more batches have gone through the same process. Once all batches are done, all batch winners would come back to the House, along with four more housemates from previous batches, chosen by the public, to form the final eight housemates who would battle to win the season.
This format was followed through on the batch 1. However, significant format changes were put in place as the show went on. By batch 2, Big Brother decided who would be an official housemate, and the housemates' stay was extended to 88 days—from the original 8 weeks or 56 days. By batch 3, all Star Dreamers eventually became housemates, entering the House by groups until Day 156. By batch 4, Camp Star Hunt was dropped, and the batch started with 12 official housemates, exiting the House via eviction without a replacement, and the housemates' stay was only 6 weeks—from the original 8 weeks or 56 days. By the Ultim8 Batch, all batch finalists returned, making the starting number of 16 housemates. The public did not decide who would return for this batch.
Aside from the twist to the show's format, the following are the highlighted twists that had occurred during the run of this season.
To disrupt normal selection processes in nominations, evictions, and even the finale to the determine the final four, Big Brother had given housemates several challenges of different formats for the five batches. For nominations and evictions, it had the Do-or-Die LigTask, The Duel, The Golden Circle and The Black Circle. For housemates to advance to the top group of any given batch, they had the Big Jump Challenge, Pinoy Big Batch-Bakan, and the Ultim8 Challenge.
This season's theme song is "Otso Na" performed by co-hosts Toni and Alex Gonzaga where most elements (including the chorus) from Orange and Lemons's "Pinoy Ako," the franchise's theme song, were included in the song.
The season's eviction theme song was performed by Moira Dela Torre entitled "Before It Sinks In", written by herself and was part of her debut studio album Malaya.
On launch night on Days 1 and 2, official housemates were determined, from the chosen Star Dreamers from Star Hunt, through a series of challenges, by the council, and by the public. The council consists of past winners: Season 1's Nene Tamayo, Celebrity 1's Keanna Reeves, Celebrity 2's Ruben Gonzaga, Teen Edition Plus's Ejay Falcon, Teen Edition 4's Myrtle Sarrosa, All In's Daniel Matsunaga, 737's Jimboy Martin, and Lucky 7's Maymay Entrata. On Day 2, three winners from the council were replaced by three ex-housemates: All In's Loisa Andalio, 737's Barbie Imperial, and Lucky 7's Edward Barber. The public chose a housemate through voting; the one with the most votes will become a housemate.
Below is a table of official housemates, and a collapsed table for shortlisted Star Dreamers staying at Camp Star Hunt.
Note that the term crossover, as used in the show, meant that the Star Dreamer had officially been an official housemate. However, in the case of Kim and Camille of batch two, they were still considered Star Dreamers when they crossed over to the House on Day 62. They eventually became official housemates on Day 68 upon the outcome of Pinoy Big Battle. No cross-overs had happened after The Gr8 C from batch three as the Camp had been abandoned.
This is the list of 88-second challenges for the first batch of teen housemates:
For Star Dreamers that didn't make the cut, they would be sent to the Camp. For them to crossover to the house, the team and individual scores of each will be added to determine their final points. The top four Star Dreamers with the most points will be up for public voting to determine who will become an official housemate. Once a Star Dreamer gets promoted as a housemate, another will come as their replacement.
On January 6 and 7, sixteen Star Dreamers entered the Camp, which was divided into Camp A and Camp B. They were divided into two groups, and had undergone the Ultimate Star Dreamer Challenge. After the challenge, Big Brother chose eight official housemates.
On this batch, Big Brother introduced the process of dismissal. A Star Dreamer would be up for dismissal if they belonged to the losing group of a challenge for three consecutive times. The other safe Star Dreamers would vote on who they want to stay in the Camp; the Star Dreamer with the fewest votes would be dismissed. On the fifth challenge, Patrick was the only one up for dismissal, so he was dismissed immediately, and no voting took place.
On Day 55, Shawntel and Thea crossed over to the Big Brother House as the official housemates; it was revealed that after this crossover, there will be no new additional Star Dreamers that would enter the Camp. Later on, Aljur Abrenica entered the Camp as a Celebrity Star Player.
On Day 62, evicted housemates Abi, JC, Tori, and Wakim entered the Camp to become House Challengers, together with the other Star Dreamers.
To reflect the numbering of days in the show and those posted their social media, the day counter is adjusted back to Day 1 upon the entry of a new batch.
For batch one:
For batch two:
For batch three:
For batch four:
In the first batch, the Ligtask was brought back in the form of the Big Celebr8ty Challenge. Every Saturday, the housemates would compete in a for immunity from nominations; there will be celebrity guests that would be participating for certain roles in the challenge. For the first week, Bayani Agbayani, Axel Torres from All In, Janella Salvador and McCoy de Leon from Lucky 7 took part in the challenge. For the second week of the challenge, Nyoy Volante, Melai Cantiveros, Billy Crawford and Jed Madela judged the teen housemates' performance. For the third week of the challenge, Rufa Mae Quinto, and Elsa Droga and Juliana Pariscova Segovia of It's Showtime took part as actors for the said challenge.
Batch one participated in Decem-versus, and the mechanics are as follows: there are three challenges they have to go through, and the teams must race to win two out of three. If the housemates got defeated by Camp Star Hunt, there would be a double eviction and two Star Dreamers would crossover. If the housemates win, no double eviction will happen. On Day 33, Ali, Reign, and Rhys, who are originally from Camp Star Hunt, took the chance to help the Camp, leaving the five other housemates to compete in the second challenge. On Day 34, after the housemates lose their second challenge, the Camp had an 88-second advantage on their third challenge. On Day 36, Ali, Reign, and Rhys were given a chance to change their decision. Rhys was the only one who returned help the housemates. Edward Barber and Maymay Entrata entered the House to help the housemates. While the Camp won two out of three, the housemates were declared winners of Decem-versus, and no double eviction happened. The reason for this decision is unknown.
Batch two participated in Pinoy Big Battle. If the housemates win, all of them will be immune from eviction; otherwise, two Star Dreamers will crossover. Prior to the announcement of the first battle, Big Brother informed Shawntel and Thea that they will be separated during the final battle: one would stay with the housemates, and the other would be sent to help the Star Dreamers. The housemates, then, chose Shawntel to help the Star Dreamers. For the second battle on Day 68, Camille and Kim learned that they weren't officially housemates yet, and would only become one after the battle. They were tasked to lead the Housemates for the second battle, while Shawntel and Andre were sent to Camp Star Hunt to lead them respectively. Grace and Kin replaced them for the battle.
Housemates participate in various challenges to be a batch finalist. On Day 50 of batch one, Big Brother announced that one of the Star Dreamers can help one of the participants. They pick Jelay, and Gian was able to help her in the challenge. On Day 31 of batch four, for the first four challenges, two housemates participate on each.
As Karina, Rhys, and Seth forfeited their chance in the Big Jump, Big Brother made them participate in a Do-or-Die Ligtask. If all of them succeeded the challenge happening on Day 53, they will be safe from eviction; otherwise, one of them will get evicted.
For batch two, housemates had to challenge another housemate to determine the duel participants. The winner of the duel would be safe, while the loser would be fake evicted from the House, be moved to a secret room in the House, and be nominated for eviction for that week.
For batch three's fourth and fifth weekly task, the housemates compete with the batch finalists of batches one and two. The challenges were played in pairs.
For batch three's nominations and evictions, Big Brother implemented a new immunity challenge called the Golden Circle. Housemates would undergo the normal nomination process; nominees from this process would be barred from joining the challenge as they would already face the public vote. Remaining housemates would participate in the challenge to gain immunity. The losing housemates would join the earlier nominees to face the public vote.
On Day 7 of the Ultim8 Batch, it was revealed that the four batches will have to battle their way to earn the remaining 4 slots of the Big 8 (Big Otso, as referred by the show) through a series of elimination challenges called the Pinoy Big Batch-Bakan. In every Big 8 slot, the batches will undergo a series of challenges until one batch emerges as the winner. With the exception of the batch winner, the members of the winning batch will then be voted by the public in order to determine the housemate who will get one of the Big 8 slots. The fifth, sixth and seventh slots were filled in this manner.
For the eighth and final throne, there are no elimination rounds. Instead, all batches will play in all rounds, and are ranked accordingly. The batch with the most points are eligible for the final throne. If Andre wins the challenge he automatically gets the throne, making the rest evicted. But if there is a tie between a batch or batch 1, 3, and 4 win, a vote will be done to see who will win.
The Ultim8 Big Otso Housemates were subjected to another series of challenges to determine the Ultim8 Big 4. A day after the Big Otso was revealed, it was announced that the public was only given 50% of the penultimate vote to decide the Ultim8 Big 4. The other 50% was determined by 100 Gold Bars representing 1% each. Housemates would earn the Golden Bars through a series of challenges.
In the third and fourth challenges, there were finite sets of available bars. Big Brother told the Housemates to agree on a sequence among themselves since the tasks could only be performed by one of them at a time. If there were still available bars at the end of a round, the Housemates would play for the remaining bars in the same sequence. Conversely, the supply of gold bars may run out before the remaining Housemates ever had a chance to play; if this occurs, they would not be able to obtain any bar. The Housemates agreed on the same sequence for both rounds, which is: Ashley, Kaori, Lie, Fumiya, Yamyam, Lou, Kiara, Andre.
In every nomination, each housemate has to nominate two people with the first receiving two points and the second with one point.
During the merged batch twist, the Big 4 of this batch (namely: Jelay, Kaori, Lie and Karina) were dubbed as Solid 4G. The batch was later assigned with blue as the batch's official color and with the #Batch1AndOnly as the batch's official hashtag code. Their batch light sticks feature a blue heart.
The First Day, November 10, 2018 is the Day 1 of this batch, and Day 1 overall. January 6, 2019 is Day 58 of this batch, and Day 58 overall.
During the merged batch twist, the Big 4 of this batch (namely: Lou, Andre, Yamyam, and Fumiya) were dubbed as Team LAYF. The batch was later assigned with green as the batch's official color and with the #Batch2getherForever as the batch's official hashtag code. Their batch light sticks feature a green star.
January 6, 2019 is the Day 1 of this batch, and Day 58 overall. March 31, 2019 is Day 85 of this batch, and Day 142 overall.
Legend
On Day 27, within 88 minutes after the eviction night episode, the housemates and the public voted in whether Apey & Mark should continue as a 2-in-1 housemate. The housemates received 50% of the vote while the public got the other 50%. The table below was the official results of the poll and was revealed on Day 28. However, Apey & Mark were earlier informed of the possible split of the two. They were briefed that after 88 minutes, the two will know the results through the lamp posts placed in the pool area. With one already lit, if another lamp post will be lit, it would mean that they will be separated as individual housemates. After the said period, the second lamp posts were lit indicating their separation from being a 2-in-1 housemate.
During the merged batch twist, the Big 4 of this batch (namely: Tan, Batit, Ashley, and Yen) were dubbed as Team TBAY. The batch was later assigned with red as the batch's official color and with the #BatchUltimate3hreat as the batch's official hashtag code. Their batch light sticks feature a red flame.
March 31, 2019 is the Day 1 of this batch, and Day 142 overall. May 26, 2019 is Day 57 of this batch, and Day 198 overall.
During the merged batch twist, the Big 4 of this batch (namely: Wealand, Argel, Kiara, and Akie) were dubbed as Team WAKA. The batch was later assigned with yellow as the batch's official color and with the #Batch4TheWin as the batch's official hashtag code. Their batch light sticks feature a yellow sun.
May 26, 2019 is the Day 1 of this batch, and Day 198 overall. July 7, 2019 is Day 43 of this batch, and Day 240 overall.
Note that July 7, 2019 served as the Day 1 of this batch, which is the Day 240 of this season. The last day, August 4, 2019, is Day 29 for this batch and is the Day 268 of this season.
The Big Night for this season was held at the AATF Sports Complex in Imus, Cavite on August 3 and 4, 2019. The finale featured variety of Kapamilya stars, Ex-Star Dreamers, Ex-housemates and other former housemates including past Pinoy Big Brother Big Winners such as Nene Tamayo of Season 1, Keanna Reeves of Celebrity 1, Ejay Falcon of Teen Plus, James Reid of Teen Clash, Myrtle Sarrosa of Teen 4, Daniel Matsunaga of All In, Miho Nishida and Jimboy Martin of 737 and Maymay Entrata of Lucky 7, the 2nd Big Placers such as Jason Gainza of Season 1, Ryan Bang of Teen Clash, Maris Racal of All In and Ylona Garcia of 737, the 3rd Big Placers such as Wendy Valdez of Season 2, Jane Oineza of All In and Yong Muhajil of Lucky 7, the 4th Big Placers such as Gee-Ann Abrahan of Season 2, Will Devaughn of Celebrity 2, Joj and Jai Agpangan of Teen 4, Dawn Chang of 737 and Edward Barber of Lucky 7, and other former housemates including evicted, forced eviction, and voluntary exit such as previous seasons of Pinoy Big Brother. On August 3, the combined result of the Ultim8 Challenge and the public's votes determined the final standing of the Big Otso. At the end of the night of August 3, the 5th to 8th placers exited the show. For August 4, the scores of the Ultim8 Big 4 were reset to zero. At this time, the public's votes alone determined the 4th to 2nd placers, and lastly the Ultim8 Big Winner.
Star Music together with ABS-CBN created an album for this season entitled Ang Soundtrack Ng Bahay Mo and was released on May 12, 2019.